One Niche

Find your niche. Follow your passion.

Okay.

Know what you want, and go after it.

Okay.

For awhile there I did, and I was… I do, and I am- I don’t know.

I have recently become one of the most driven people I know, sure of exactly what I want to do and where I want to go. I have been practicing proactivity and setting myself up for that picture perfect future. And some days, that’s still exactly what I want.

Other days (like last Friday when I realized that I actually have no idea what I’m doing in six months, and, if I set myself up for it right, I can potentially do whatever the hell I want), that’s not what I want, or at least I don’t know if it is.

I don’t believe that we all have just one “niche.”

One day I want to be a corporate PR pro in a city, and the next I want to be a writer for a small magazine in Montana. One day I want to move to North Carolina and waitress while I work on my novel (I’m the next Nicholas Sparks, didn’t you know), and the next I want to be a dance choreographer in LA. One day I want to follow my passion for theatre in New York, and the next I want to go get my graduate degree and become a professor.

Literally (I can’t) all of the above thoughts have ran through my head in the past week or so, and I guess I’m writing this to tell myself that that’s okay.

One day I am certain, the next unsure.

I don’t believe that this is an odd feeling for individuals to experience at different points in their lives. Although it probably resonates well with many graduating seniors- I think, and I hope, that other people often feel it too.

Because feeling uncertain and unsure is not a bad thing.

I am not complacent.

I won’t satisfy for a life that I don’t love. I won’t satisfy for a life lacking purpose. I won’t satisfy for a life less than what it has the potential to be.

This is an exhausting, scary and absolutely rewarding mindset to have.

We all have many passions, many loves. We all have many dreams. It’s okay to not know exactly what path you are going to take, it’s okay to be a little bit unsure if you’re on the right one.

It’s okay to be content and happy in your path and yet often take a step back and reflect on where you are.

What’s not okay, is wondering “what if,” or wondering if the fact that you don’t know exactly where you are headed somehow puts you at a disadvantage.

If you want to do something, try it. If you aren’t willing to make the sacrifices to obtain that goal, you will soon find out. If you want to move somewhere, go. If you don’t, you probably didn’t want to in the first place. If you want to write something, write it. If you don’t, maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

If you’ve found your niche, if you’re sure of your path, continue to work hard, and realize that if you change your mind tomorrow, that’s okay. If you see others that appear to know exactly where they’re headed, realize that maybe they don’t so much (#holla).

If you don’t know exactly what you want, realize that’s okay and do some searching- fail a few times, go with the flow, work hard in each endeavor- the answer isn’t always limited to one fill in the blank, one niche.