I’ve been terrible at achieving long-term career goals. Even though I knew “what I wanted to be”, the goal itself has been changing so much over the years, moving from a career in music to a career in photography, and it will probably keep changing.

One reason for that is the list of “grown-up jobs” is usually pretty short and limited to “lawyer, musician, designer” etc.

But how realistic is it to pre-select it at some early point in your life?

The problem with how we often think about all this, is that the process of selecting something comes from the outside in.

In reality, it’s the other way around.

We find ourselves in the right workspace if we’re flourishing and learning, if we’re creating things of substance that matter to us and others, and we’re working with great people.

If it sounds overwhelming to do all that, you can start with great people and work on a way to be around them and work with them. The rest usually follows.

But what do I mean by “flourishing and learning”?

It’s doing our best work. Work that adds something to the culture, that makes us stand out, work that allows us to get fully immersed in, that people can’t help but notice, because of how we show up or what exactly we deliver.

And the learning aspect? It self-explanatory, and there shouldn’t be room for negotiation, it’s how we move forward and the only way to keep growing.

George Kroustallis // Minorstep