"I Never Planned A Career"
A meditation on work, worth, and the places they (almost) meet.
I’ve been tackling the chaos of my photo library lately. Each morning, I type the date in the search bar (“June 4”) and scroll through snapshots from years past. Delete the duplicates, old screenshots, blurry moments I no longer need. Hold onto the one of my adorable baby niece, running free through the sprinkler.
Today, buried in a half-dozen photos of my dog, I found an image I’d saved in 2023. I must have loved it for the quote, which stopped me in my tracks. I had to look up the author.
Attributed in 1987 to Anees Jung, a writer and journalist, it read:
The years move, the seasons change. I move with them seeking my peace, my alternatives. The road which I have travelled has emerged on its own. And the road that lies ahead is not clearer; the landmarks emerge only on arrival. People tell me I have ‘arrived.’ I do not know what it means. For I never planned a career, just grew into it. Hence I make my norms as I go along. They cannot be shared with others as they are strictly mine. I have not yet found a face that suits a ‘modern’ woman and a graph that determines the patterns of her life. I continue to live out an experience for which I have yet to find a name.
It reminded me of an interview I stumbled on recently with an executive I’ve come to admire. She said,
“If you look back at my whole career arc—if you can call something that winds around so much an arc—I’ve gone about it by always looking for where the opportunity is where I’ll grow and learn the most.”
The lines from both echoed through me. Not only because they share a message that resonates for so many of us—but because they crystallize something I’ve been living into without ever quite noticing: I never planned a career, either.
At least, not this one.
The Heaviest Branch
If you asked 22-year-old, newly-graduated me what was ahead, I’d have told you a gap year of waitressing before an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, followed by a life of publishing or perishing in academia.
(spoiler alert: that’s not quite what happened—although I am somehow still in academia, I’ll always connect my work to poetry, and will forever die on the hill that is the value of a B.A. in English).
No, I never planned my career—
I grew into it.
And, I’ve outgrown it, more than once.
Now I wonder if I’m on the cusp of growth spurt again. Not by staying on a predictable path—but by noticing where new ground feels ready to be broken.
When I started my company, I was leaving corner offices and conference tables for a one-to-one coaching business for-ev-er… it’s an all-in energy I love.
But the dynamics of teamwork, the collaboration; the nuances of marketing and strategy, the challenges of operations and revenue—they all kept calling, and—what can I say?—I missed our late nights, the years we spent building a future together.
After expressing my career confusion, my Dad shared a lesson he’d learned from his own father, out in the apple orchards of Sparta, Michigan. When it’s time to harvest, where do you even start?
“Just look for the heaviest branch,” Grandpa told him. “The one that’s closest to the ground.”
As it turns out, that’s what I’ve done. Not always consciously, but consistently.
I’ve followed the branches heavy with meaning, with connection, with challenge, with delight, and with promise.
Where the real weight is. Where the real nourishment lives.
Where Possibility Meets Payment
I have career that has grown and dwelled, as Emily Dickinson wrote, “in Possibility—”
But here’s the harder part: possibility is lovely, but you also have to dwell… in reality.
Sometimes, what nourishes the soul isn’t what puts food on the table. That junction—the pressure of what we need meeting the pull of what aligns us—isn’t just uncomfortable. It’s revealing.
It forces a kind of listening.
A sort of surrender.
And I’m learning—
that discomfort is where the real opportunity for what’s next begins to unfold.
Not necessarily the perfect five-year plan or ideal job description, but something that feels heavy with promise—and juuuust low enough to reach.
There’s a concept helping me feel rooted in all this shifting, called Ikigai—or, reason for being. You may have seen a Venn diagram with four intersecting circles making the entrepreneurship rounds some years ago.
At the center lies your Ikigai (pronounced eye-ka-guy). It’s the space where—
what you love,
what you’re good at,
what the world needs,
and what you can be paid for
…all come together.
Not every season of life is gonna hit all four.
It might be a rare season that does.
But asking the right questions can help us move closer to that center.
📌 Worth Considering
Here are a few helpful questions to sit with or journal on—ones I’m marinating on, too:
What you love:
What kinds of work light me up—even when they’re challenging?
When do I feel most alive, curious, or creative?
What am I doing when I lose track of time?
What you’re good at:
What skills come naturally to me—or have been hard-earned over time?
What do people consistently seek me out for?
Where have I added real value, even if it didn’t feel flashy?
What the world needs:
What problems or people do I feel called to help?
What change would I be proud to contribute to?
Where do my values meet a real need?
What you can be paid for:
What services or expertise are people already hiring me for—or willing to?
What kinds of offers feel aligned and sustainable?
How could I reposition my work without disconnecting it from its soul?
Your Ikigai might not appear all at once. Mine hasn’t.
It continues to unfold, season by season. Like the quote said, “the road that lies ahead is not clearer; the landmarks emerge only on arrival.”
And so, we move on, toward the next landmark. Asking, listening, adjusting to what’s emerging, and, hopefully—appreciating the view along the way.
—T
P.S. I’d love to know what you are noticing in this season. What branch feels heaviest with promise right now? What question from the list tugged at you the most? Feel free to share in the comments, message or email me—or just let it sit with you awhile.