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Making the Most of Your Unexpected Career Turns
By: Aubrey Moulton
A good tune gives this advice: "If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with." While I am a bit dubious about the wisdom of this suggestion regarding love, it is unquestionably helpful medicine for unforeseen career jogs in your career path. Unanticipated obstacles sometimes make it difficult or implausible for us to be employed in our "dream jobs," so to speak. Do we then just consign ourselves to a life of misery and mediocrity? We don’t need to. We can learn to make the best of a bad situation, to quote another song.
Look at me as a case study. I earned and English degree and dreamed of pursuing a career as a lawyer.. I moved my little family to Washington, DC, the Mecca of the legal profession, and applied for a host of legal secretary positions. I was given a temp legal secretary position but, after finishing my assignment, was moved to an accounting position within the same company. For awhile, I made do in a job that was almost just data entry.
However, I gradually gained more responsibility, experience, and expertise. After six months, I was running a team of seven accountants, training, troubleshooting, directing communications with other departments during a time of tremendous change, and mingling daily with management. Surprisingly, I found myself liking the challenges my job offered. I never figured I would find so much satisfaction in an accounting job.
I stayed in that title for two years at one of the country's most successful firms. After two years, I applied to both law schools and MBA programs. I was not admitted into law school, but I did get into a great MBA program. I’m now in the process of transitioning into a Marketing career.
Admittedly, careers have a way of throwing you curve balls. Could I have known that my career would take the course it did? Not really. I planned and worked hard with every step. And those plans changed over and over again. I have learned, however, that you can succeed and be happy in your career, despite unexpected changes.
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