The other day I was having a discussion with a friend. This friend was upset that she had not taken another educational path in life. She said that she did the “smart” thing and got the “hard” degree. This got me to thinking about the definition of smart. In her description smart means getting an education that many people would consider hard, thus she starts out making a good salary. We need to look at in a different light. It is not that someone is smarter than another person; it is that some people possess skills that others do not. For instance, I am good at math but I am lousy at anything artistic. I have friends that are musical geniuses but when I tried to learn the guitar it was a very difficult process that I gave up. So in other words I am not smarter than my friends, just that we have different skill sets. This is where some people run into trouble. They see smart as being something that makes a lot of money, a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc. They do not consider where their skills lie. For example, there may be somebody that thought engineering would be their ticket to prosperity. Everybody thought this was a great career choice because they could make a lot of money. They struggle through school to get the degree and then enter the workforce. After working for a short period they begin realizing that they are bored at work and they do not really fit in. Because of this they are unhappy and feel they are stuck. Everybody they talk to (themselves included) about their lack of contentment says they could not make this kind of money elsewhere, and if they were to leave their job as an engineer they would have wasted their degree.
How many of you can relate to this? Are you unhappy about your career? Well, do not believe that you are stuck just because you think cannot make this kind of money elsewhere or that your degree would be wasted. You need to realize that you have plenty of time on your hands to change your future. You are only as stuck as you allow yourself to be. To get out of this rut you need to believe that if you take action you can have the life you want with a job you love while making plenty of money. You just need to put a plan in action to get there and do not hold yourself back with thoughts of what you believe to be past mistakes.
Another thing to consider is that you would not be where you are today without the choices you made in the past, including your education. Do not look at it as “whoa as me, I made bad past choices, I am forever lost” look at it as “I cannot wait to add to my knowledge set so I can make a transition to my next phase of life”.