Looking for answers

We're all in a process of looking for answers: what career is right for me, how should I be raising my child, why aren't I making more money? The answers really are out there, all around us, showing up in little and big incidents here and there. There are signs that we can choose to see and understand, if only we take the time. Most of us are so busy planning, controlling, and doing that we don't allow time for observing.

For example, take my friend Ella. Ella worked for non-for-profits, both as an employee and consultant, for several years. The whole time, she thought that her dream was to work in sustainability. She traveled to sustainability conferences, taught herself about sustainability, and built herself a sustainability network. She was a sustainability machine. She finally took a leap and transitioned to a job in sustainability, and guess what? It felt kinda hollow. She realized that she wasn't as passionate about a job in sustainability as she had originally thought. As a hobbie, maybe, but not as a job.

She returned home discouraged and directionless. And for the first time in a long time, she wasn't doing, but motionless. And then it came. Business colleagues started consulting her on how to structure their businesses. She realized that this came easily to her, she was good at it, and she enjoyed it. In fact, when she looked back on her years working in the non-for-profit sector, her favorite aspect of every role she had held had been structuring teams and companies, and helping other people structure theirs. She had never really noticed this while chasing the sustainability dream. But when she took a moment to observe, it seemed glaringly obvious that company structuring was her thing. Now she is consulting full-time, and loving it.

Sometimes, the path to success is not in doing, but in not doing and just listening. We make it all seem so complicated, but what if it all were that obvious?