Have you found your talent yet?

Family and friends want to know where you are going to school, what your plans are, what you are going to “be when you grow up”, what your passion is. It’s easy for older adults to get caught up in the excitement of all of the opportunities younger adults have in front of them. Maybe they are reliving the exciting days of their youth or maybe they are regretting some choices they made and hoping to guide you to make better ones.

I would be willing to bet that when they graduated from high school most of them didn’t have a terribly good idea of what life had in store for them. Many of them changed majors, dropped out of college and went back a few years later, switched jobs, changed careers, returned to school to get a graduate degree in a new field or otherwise ended up doing something they had no intention of doing when they declared their goals and dreams in their senior yearbook. They didn’t know what they wanted to do any more than you do.

Most of us – especially those who are just starting out in college – don’t know what our talents are let alone have a clear plan for pursuing those talents in a logical path toward an overarching goal or vision for our future. College is about learning and growing; it’s about exploring what you are good at and what you enjoy; it’s about finding out what you are not good at and what you can’t stand doing; it’s about figuring out who you are and what you want to do.

Not having all of the answers right now doesn’t mean that you won’t figure the answers out. Believe in the power of yet.