Your Future Is Built One Decision at a Time
How Small Decisions and Second Chances Built an Unexpected Career Path
If I could sit down with every young woman who feels like she’s already fallen behind, this is what I would tell her.
Your future isn’t built in one giant leap. It’s built one decision at a time—one class, one application, one conversation, one opportunity, one day of refusing to quit. Looking back, that’s exactly how my own career was built—not through one defining moment, but through hundreds of small decisions that slowly changed the direction of my life.
I didn’t begin my career with a carefully mapped-out plan, and I certainly didn’t know where it would eventually lead. I wasn’t thinking about executive leadership, conference stages, or thought leadership. I simply wanted more choices for myself and for my children. That became my motivation. I didn’t need to know exactly where I was going; I just had to believe that taking the next step would move me closer to a future I couldn’t yet see.
Building a Future One Decision at a Time
When I started college at 32, my life was already full. I was raising two boys, working, paying bills, and trying to build a better future one day at a time. Online education wasn’t nearly as common then as it is today, but it gave me an opportunity I might not have had otherwise.
Many evenings, my boys and I would sit together at the kitchen table doing homework side by side. When the days were packed with baseball games, school activities, and everything else that comes with raising children, I would wait until the house was quiet, open my laptop, and study late into the night. It wasn’t glamorous, and it certainly wasn’t easy, but semester by semester I earned my associate’s degree, then my bachelor’s degree, and eventually my master’s.
There was a conversation during those years that I’ve never forgotten. A friend once asked me why I was bothering with college at all. She suggested I could simply stay where I was, rely on assistance, and live my life. I remember being surprised—not because I thought she was wrong for making different choices, but because I realized we saw the future very differently.
I wanted my boys to grow up believing they always had choices. I wanted them to see that education wasn’t just about earning a degree—it was about creating opportunities that didn’t exist before.
Opportunity Rarely Arrives Looking Like Your Dream Job
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that opportunity rarely arrives looking like your dream job. More often, it looks like a job you almost overlook because it doesn’t seem connected to where you ultimately want to go.
I’ve worked at McDonald’s. I’ve driven a transit bus. I’ve been a scanning technician. Later, I managed an entire scanning operation. Eventually, those experiences led me into records management, information governance, enterprise transformation, and executive leadership.
At the time, none of those jobs felt connected. Looking back, every one of them prepared me for the next opportunity. Driving a bus taught me responsibility and composure under pressure. Customer service taught me patience and communication. Running a scanning operation taught me process improvement, leadership, and operational discipline. Every role gave me skills I still rely on today. None of those experiences were wasted.
That’s why I encourage young women not to become discouraged if their first opportunity isn’t exactly what they hoped for. Sometimes the first door isn’t your destination—it’s simply the hallway that leads to the next one. Your career doesn’t have to unfold in a straight line. Mine certainly didn’t.
Learning Differently as a Strength
Along the way, I also learned that I have dyslexia. For years, I kept that to myself because I worried people would misunderstand what it meant. I was afraid they might mistake learning differently for being less capable.
Instead, it became one of my greatest strengths. It taught me to ask better questions, to look for patterns instead of memorizing answers, and to become comfortable learning and relearning throughout my career. That willingness to keep learning has opened more doors than any single degree ever could.
Your Circumstances Don’t Write Your Future
If there’s one thing I hope young women take from my story, it’s this: don’t let your circumstances convince you that your future has already been written. Whether you come from a small town, became a parent earlier than you planned, started college later than everyone else, or simply don’t feel like you’ve followed the “right” path—none of those things determine where you’ll finish.
Build your future one decision at a time. Stay curious. Learn everything you can wherever you are. Don’t be afraid to take opportunities that don’t look perfect, because they often become the experiences that prepare you for opportunities you can’t yet imagine.
Most importantly, never confuse your starting point with your destination. The life you’re building won’t be defined by where you began. It will be defined by the choices you make every day to keep moving forward.
