In 2006, when I was 28, I was working as a Web Developer in The Netherlands. After 6 years on the job, I started losing interest.

One day at that time I was talking to a friend of mine. We were exploring roles I could possibly pursue other than a Web Developer.

Our conversation ended nowhere. My friend moved from The Netherlands to New Zealand. I stayed… and moved on with my career with the same opened question…

𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘐 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 I didn’t enjoy coding that much anymore. I wanted to understand the real struggles of our customers, what problems they really wanted to solve, and why, and thought I, perhaps, better become an IT Consultant or someone like that…

In 2012, when I was 34, I was working as a Business Operations Analyst. I seemed to start losing interest in what I was doing. Although I was part of a dream team, I could not say I was happy.

I spoke to my manager. We had some philosophical debates on the topic. And I moved on… with the same unsolved problem…

𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘐 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 I loved helping my teammates make bridges with each other, resolve conflicts, get into the roots of the problems, and explore the solutions. That’s where I was shining. It felt natural to me.

Most of these notices regarding the things I enjoyed to be doing on the jobs were way later in my career.

When I was switching jobs I didn’t know where I was aiming.

It could look very much like I was in the darkroom trying to find a way out. …any way out.

How about you? Did you always know at every step of your career what role would you like to pursue next and why would you want that?