The first thing that probably comes to mind if you’re relating the phrase “target practice” to your personal life is your ex’s face on a dartboard. Or in front of your car. Whichever you prefer (though I don’t condone the latter). I personally haven’t any desire to take aim at any of the unfortunate mistakes I’ve made in my blurry past, save maybe for the narcissistic sailor I dated in college. But I chalk that up to immaturity and a really bad psychic.
Anyway, that’s not even what I’m talking about. Think: why would one engage in “target practice” in say, archery, or whatever you technically call the sport of shooting? Or that game with the softballs and the apple baskets at the boardwalk that nobody ever wins. Target practice is necessary because you’re usually fairly certain that you won’t hit the intended target on the first try, especially when it really matters. Just like you’re probably not going to marry the first person you date, nor are you going to remain eternally seated in your first job out of college. Target practice is: throwing your best shot at an intended target, and then gauging where it makes sense to readjust your strategy.
Perhaps you are like me, where your target is unclear, but it doesn’t stop you from shooting anyway…just to see what happens. Metaphorically speaking, I decided to fore-go the bow altogether and just enthusiastically hurl a handful of arrows towards the bullseye, hoping one sticks and I earn points. Here’s how my career unfolded over the last decade-plus:
- In college I used to think I wanted to be a model because it was easy money. I’m also five-foot-one and a size 6. I emailed some random photographer named AJ off Craig’s List and he took pictures of me around Boston.
- I needed an internship Junior year of college, and not really knowing anyone else who was a “professional”, I emailed AJ asking if he was looking for help. He told me to contact this guy Stefano who ran a modeling agency in Boston.
- I worked for said modeling agency, interviewing and marketing beautiful people the summer after junior year. I was also a telemarketer for an upscale dating club, helping non-beautiful people find love. And I was a nanny. I spent my last 10 dollars that summer to see Aerosmith in Connecticut instead of paying my rent.
- Stefano hired me full time after college to run the men’s division. I enjoy beautiful, brazen men as much as the next gal, but I quit after 4 months; four times longer than most of his other assistants lasted, seeing as the working conditions were comparable to a Malaysian textile factory.
- Now that I had “talent management experience” I interviewed with recruiting agencies. Digital People hired me because I was an Aerosmith fan. And I had office skills.
- I recruited for a long time and got pretty good at it. And then I moved to New York because I was tired of traveling 12 hours round-trip every time there was a family event in New Jersey. Shortly after, I realized I missed helping people get jobs.
- I trained as a career coach and now I help people figure out what kind of jobs they want (and how to get them), and I write blogs about it.
If I had shot at an actual target some 11 years ago, that probably would have been a creative career in advertising. I never got there. I never aimed for it. That’s probably a good thing, because when I used to design mock-up ads for my portfolio class, they were these horrible mish-mashes of overly-done visual elements with crap by-lines. I blame my pre-assigned copywriter for that. But at the same time, no one is going to buy a new stainless steel convection oven because it’s flying through the atmosphere in a cloud of kinetic energy. As a result, my career path was pretty much a fart in the wind; and for me, that worked. For others, a more targeted approach might make more sense. Plenty of my friends had targets, and while some hit them, others aborted the initial mission as something better came along.
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Because no one ever told them “You have to figure it out on the first try.” And when you look at Gens Y&X today compared to the boomer generation that is many of our parents, we are a much different bunch. We’re a culture that has not only made it a standard practice to hop from job to job, but to hop between careers as well. Forget the first try; some of us are figuring it out on the fourth, fifth or sixth. And that is more common than you might think. Career and job stability is DOA, a long-gone myth of the past, and the reality is that these days many of us are turning to plans B,C,D or E, because ‘A’ just didn’t fit us the way it used to. I parted ways with my size 2 self a long time ago, and I’m more at peace with what “fits” these days. Good intentions, like clothes, can be outgrown. And you know what? Truthfully acknowledging that is the single best thing you can do for yourself and your career when faced with that situation.
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We move on from relationships, and we move on from careers just the same. In either scenario, it’s difficult and sometimes heartbreaking, and we feel like failures, fools and idiots. But in a good many of those scenarios, it’s liberating and exciting, and all about being honest with ourselves and looking forward toward our true potential, living the best version of ourselves.
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I was trying to think of a good “how-to” article for this week, something of tangible value for my readers to engage in and apply. I realized I don’t like to write “how-to” articles. I prefer “why-to” articles, the more entertaining stuff that pokes a little deeper and elicits a bit more “hmmm…”. I like to help people figure out their “why’s” in life- why we fail, why we succeed, why we feel stuck, or lost, or exhilarated by one thing, but not something else. Why do we perceive failure as failure and success as success? Human beings are always asking “why?”. That’s the stuff that builds clarity around who we really are, and helps us do the work that resonates with what we deep down know is our life purpose.
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Several years later I was on my way to visit Lieutenant Narcissus in Chicago when I ran into AJ working the security line at Logan Airport. He vaguely remembered me, and as he checked me for potential explosives, explained how the model photography business had gone south, and he had taken up working for TSA for the last year. “Good benefits,” he said.  Even the most steadfast of entrepreneurial spirits and the most loyal of molded employees change their minds all the time.  In the wise words of Aerosmith, “Life’s a journey, not a destination,” and I tell you what - I’m going to trust Steven Tyler, because the boy’s made a few million bucks in his lifetime.
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Honestly, don’t over-think it. Why? Because I said so.  How? Aim. Shoot. Miss. Try again.
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