Not Before Its Time — But Not After

My first year of classroom teaching was terrible. The second was tolerable. Then I took six months off and worked construction to sort things out in my heart and mind. During the time I was shoveling gravel or driving an asphalt roller, my mind continually turned over what had gone right, and what had gone wrong.

When I went back to teaching I was ready. Everything just fell into place, and I soon saw that this was something I was meant to do. My innate giftings, my experience, and my training all came together as I nurtured young souls and minds. It was as if someone had flipped a switch. It was time.

I stayed in full time classroom teaching for seven more years. During this time, I was regularly asked to host teachers-in-training, of whom several later became colleagues and close friends. I was considered a master of my craft and was being groomed for administration before I decided to go to law school instead.

Even during legal training, teaching at night school, summer school, and supply teaching helped keep the wolf away from the door, and always struck me as a ridiculously easy way for a law student to make good money. More often than not I did not have to go looking for such work, it came looking for me.

This isn’t meant to blow my own horn but by way of illustration that finding your groove is sometimes arduous and sometimes takes time. But it’s always worth it.

Frequently while working with professionals who are not satisfied with their lives– some so much so that they want to quit and do something else– one finds that what is needed is time.

Time to discover who you really are. Time to figure out what you were put on this planet for. Time to be honest with yourself about what your innate giftings are, and just as important, the stuff at which you’ll never be more than mediocre, and which you need to let go. Time to reflect on how your experiences have formed you. Time, sometimes, to patch some holes in your training.

But when it is time, nothing will happen until you begin. Even the toughest time of self-analysis needs a start point. “Tomorrow” is never a good answer about when you will get your act together.

If you know someone who is at a low point of professional satisfaction, suggest they e-mail me to ask for my no-cost, no-pressure Professional Satisfaction Audit.