Consider the dozens of life and career choices you’ve made over the years. Try to remember how and why you make those choices. What were you expecting at the time? How did the reality match up with your expectations? Did the choice of school, career, job, or spouse worked out better than you dreamed – or far worse? What do you know now that you wish you known at the time? How might you have made a more informed and wiser decision? What can you do to improve your decision-making the next time you’re faced with a life-altering choice?
Then look for patterns – hidden similarities that underlie the choices you’ve made. On reflection, you might discover that you repeatedly chose the easier of two career paths – or the harder. Neither of these patterns is necessarily “right” or “wrong” – what’s important is that you recognize your own tendencies and make conscious choices about whether and how to change them going forward.