A Shotgun Start

Have you ever heard of a "shotgun start"?

It's a golf term. Instead of each player starting at hole number one, players spread out and start from different holes.

For quarterlifers--people 16-39-- life can be a shotgun start.

What do I mean?

Few of us start out in the job, town and position that we ultimately want to be in.

Right?

Instead we spread out and start in different positions and unknown towns.

It's understandable. We don't have the years of experience or extensive networks that open up job positions in our favorite cities and dream companies.

Instead we start where we can get our footing.

Usually this means that we either start with a entry level position in a top company or we take on a position of more reponsibility in a lesser known area and company.

In her article, Twentysomethings May Have To Move Away to Get Ahead, Emily Meehan discusses this. She interviewed several quarterlifers who moved from the comfort of their homes to new cities and companies in hopes that they will gain valuable experience that they could not find back home.

For some the experience they had helped them narrow down what they did not want to do in life. For others they gained practicle experience that never would have been learned had they not been willing to step into the unknown.

One trend that I've seen over and over is that quarterlifers who move away from home learn to trust their own abilities quicker. They learn how to stand on their own two feet.

It makes sense. When we move to a new area with no family or friends we begin making decisions that we never had to make by ourselves before. From renting an apartment to buying a car to cooking meals it becomes very clear that we must take responsibility for our lives or nothing will happen.

The negative side is that there is no safety net to fall back into.

The positive side is that we begin to experience first hand that we are capable of making decisions and living our lives. We begin to trust our own experience and don't feel the need to look outside of our selves for every answer.

This self-reliance builds self-esteem which in turns gives us the confidence to step further into the unknown and take on new job, relationship, and travel opportunities.

We all visualized a textbook lives for ourselves. We thought we would start one place and travel systematically towards our dream life. In reality life is a shotgun start. We may end up far from the place we thought we would be...but exactly where we need to be.

Send me an email and let me know if you are living, working or in a relationship that is not what you expected from yourself. What has been the good, bad and the ugly?

Send emails to jason@uploadexperience.com