How do we even know if something is for us?

Do we even know what is out there for us when we’re youngster? Or we just have wishful thinking in terms that are known to us and our surroundings in that very moment?

More often than not in any development process - product, content, you name it - one faces bugs and delays. Revisions, rewriting, redoing. Happy flows in a manner of a straight line of non-error delivery is an ideal scenario that rarely happens. But it exists like an ideal concept a team should strive for.

You know, something like a school example. Or an experiment in strictly controlled conditions. Life, however, is everything but a laboratory-controlled environment. It doesn’t matter if we talk about the life of a product, content piece, or a person’s career.

There’s just so much we can control, and it comes down to our actions and output only.

To this day I tend to forget this occasionally.

Luckily, life is also about figuring out things on the way. Not before we start anything.

That’s how I figured out I’d need a stable job in the office, after series of part-time jobs, so I could finish my studies after my return from the student exchange in 2017.

At the time I wanted to become a professor of literature, get a job at one of the universities back in Spain, and live a calm life by the sea with my book, the sound of the waves, a lot of sun and icy cold white wine. A career in marketing was nowhere in sight.

Before I landed back in Serbia I had a job in a marketing agency specializing in something that I didn’t quite understand what is it, and with a job title that sounded like I’ll arrange bricks at its best.

Even though that’s a laughable situation now, at that very moment while I was going through three printed 200+ pages about Search Engine Optimization it was more like crying on my destiny thing

.

After three months I was furious. It was 2017, and I just realized that for the past five years whole meta version of life was developing on the internet while I was learning about media and marketing from the book where television and radio were the thing. Even though I had 20 and something, I was at least 50 years behind.

I knew nothing about the economy, about marketing, about the internet. Even though I was living in the economy, consuming the marketed products, and definitely surfing on the internet while posting my favourite jams on my Facebook wall.

Paradoxically, I went from knowing-all adolescent and literature students to a digital illiterate quite fast.

So I started what I knew the best - learning.

No matter how many times I did something wrong, or even worse I didn't understand what I was doing I pushed more. Udemy and HubSpot Academy became my favourite place to hang out. At the time I didn’t know how to get to the books that would help me to catch something so uncatchable like algorithm changes and all those new things like link building.

I needed to figure out everything that needed to be figured out about SEO, link building, and content. Everything. I was reading tons of blogs that I was discovering daily. I was obsessed. At the same time, I was struggling to actually write a decent outreach email and to ask something from anyone.

I mean, to this day it’s pretty comical when I think about the term link builder and that era of mine when I entered through the digital marketing door.

Two years after my breakthrough into the SEO world, I got an offer from a startup to run their content marketing efforts. Something I didn’t do earlier. Or ever actually.

As it happens I was recommended to them for link-building services, but during our conversation I realised - they don’t have anything I could build a link to. So I used all my gathered knowledge from Udemy courses and blogs I’ve read at the time like Moz, Search Engine Journal, Content Marketing Institute and others to explain to them what are all the steps they needed to take before we could collaborate.

Two weeks later they called me and asked if I would be willing to do all of that. I accepted.

I was freaked out. I knew nothing about building websites and developing content marketing. Once again, I was starting in chaos and with a lack of information, knowledge, and, well, practice.

So I did what I knew - started learning.

I have once again browsed every corner of the internet to understand what I needed to do, and how to be successful in it. No one was sharing their experiences and thoughts on LinkedIn back then. Even the podcasts with useful info were rare things. On top of that, I struggled with my English and communicating with natives.

Around that time I realized I still haven't finish my studies.

So I was reading class materials to do exams, taking courses from Wharton University online to be able to do the job I took, and still thought I was building my path to my dream. When as it happened I was working through my career in digital marketing. 🤡

This came to my realisation maybe two years later when I failed to get my submission on time to the Erasmus Join Master program, while at the same time getting into some of the most prestigious master programs like Westminster just to opt out of it because of the lack of the funds.

Accidentally, I was building a career in digital marketing, instead of in academia.

All it took was to adapt and learn.

Something I kinda refused in an academic context. At least when it comes to adapting.

In the end, as well as in the beginning, every career path requires patience, and the will to learn and adapt.

Maybe things don’t seem understandable in the process, or when we compare to the wishes we had when we were younger.

But the question that surges is - do we even know what is out there for us when we’re youngster? Or we just have wishful thinking in terms that are known to us and our surroundings in that very moment?

For us is what we choose.

I always choose learning and change.

And you?

Love,

B.