I drive a lime green Jeep Wrangler named Francesca. I take her off-road as often as life allows, usually through the mountains around Northern Colorado with my club, and if you’ve never been on a trail that requires you to pick your line before you commit to it, let me paint the picture.
You’re looking at a section of trail with rocks, ruts, a drop-off on one side, and no guarantee that the path you can see actually connects to where you want to go. You slow down. You get out and walk it. You ask someone who’s been here before. And then you commit. Because hesitating in the middle is actually the most dangerous place to be.
I think about career navigation the same way.
Most people are trying to make big career decisions from inside the vehicle, moving too fast to see the terrain clearly, afraid to stop and assess because stopping feels like falling behind. But the professionals who make the best moves are almost always the ones who slow down first. Who get out and walk the trail before they commit.
What does that look like in practice? It looks like getting honest about where you actually are, not where you thought you’d be by now. It looks like identifying what you can and can’t see from your current vantage point. It looks like finding someone who has been down a similar road and can tell you what’s around the bend.
It also looks like trusting yourself once you’ve done that work. Because once you’ve assessed the terrain, you know your vehicle, and you’ve picked your line, the worst thing you can do is second-guess mid-move. Confidence isn’t the absence of uncertainty. It’s deciding that you’ve done enough work to commit.
The trails I love most are the ones that felt a little intimidating at the start. The ones I wasn’t sure I could handle. And every single time, the view from the top made the whole thing worth it. Your career is the same kind of trail. It doesn’t have to be reckless. It just has to be intentional. And it is absolutely worth the climb.
