Did You Choose That Map?

Rethinking Goals, Crossroads, and the Paths We Inherit

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Everyone talks about purpose, goals, and impact these days. But maybe what you really need isn’t yet another 5-year plan or inspiring mission statement—perhaps something simpler: a clear map that shows you exactly where you are, the terrain around you, and the potential paths leading somewhere you truly want to explore.

What if the first thing you need isn’t a goal… it’s a map?

Imagine a friend visiting you from abroad. She rents a car, drives around, gets lost, and calls you for directions. What’s the first thing you ask? “Where are you?”

That’s how transformation works too. You can’t chart a meaningful path unless you have clarity about where you stand emotionally, financially, mentally, and even spiritually. But nobody teaches us how to pinpoint our current location in life and internally.

We’re all subtly (or not so subtly) marketed this classic life track: study, get a job, earn money, marry, raise kids, retire, and if your knees still function, maybe slip in a bit of travel before arthritis has other ideas. Then, ultimately, leave behind a house your kids will have to sell because they can’t afford the inheritance tax.

Now, I’m not here to criticize any particular map if it genuinely suits you. But doesn't this sound like a default map we've all inherited? I'm simply suggesting you pause, especially if you're at a crossroads, to ask yourself:

'Is this really my map? Do these paths truly align with who I am and where I genuinely want to go?'

Not wrong. Not right. Just…inherited. A default mode. I'm not here to criticize it. I'm just suggesting you pause especially if you’re at the beginning of a journey, or standing at a crossroads to ask: Is this really my map? Is this the journey I actually want?

Every life path comes with a different flavor of problems. So the real question is: Which problems are you excited to solve? Would you rather deal with less money and less stress, or more money along with the pressure it brings? Would you rather take a risk, or live with a stable life? Each will come with upsides and downsides.

Which problems are you excited to solve?

I was having coffee with my boyfriend the other day when he asked who I was writing this blog for. As I described my ideal reader—smart, curious, heart-driven people who are capable but sometimes uncertain about their next steps—I suddenly realized something bigger:

We’re not short on knowledge or skills. We’re short on orientation.

In my 20s and early 30s, I changed careers like outfits. I worked as a translator, sold cars, bartended, tried acting, worked as a life coach, led workshops in Berlin and LA, ran YouTube shows, hosted podcasts. I moved from one path to the next like I was speed-dating my own identity. Every new version of me felt like a better fit…until it didn’t.

I call those years my revolving door phase…an intense stretch of trial and error, trying on different lives to figure out what fit.

A revolving door phase is when you keep moving, not to escape, but to understand. Sometimes you exit exactly where you started…but you’re no longer the same.

I kept spinning through that revolving door until, finally slowing down, I noticed another exit—one I’d completely missed while moving too fast. I paused, suddenly curious if maybe, just maybe, there was something different outside.

That unexpected exit led me straight to a Buddhist monastery in Scotland—definitely not on my original itinerary. But here's the thing: life rarely sticks to the itinerary we set anyway. Realistically speaking, we're never fully in control. Each decision we make is a mixture of our intention and life’s sense of humor (also known as randomness).

Every decision = your intention + randomness.

You can aim for health, stability, success…and still get blindsided by loss, illness, heartbreak. And sometimes you get a mix bag of all.

For instance, I received a scholarship to study Cognitive and Perceptual Brain Sciences at University College London. Dream come true, right? Except I couldn’t start for two years. Bureaucracy. A missing stamp. Confusion about my residency status. Every September, I packed my bags just in case; every October, I unpacked them again.

Frustrating? Deeply. I spent two years repeatedly moving in and out of London, living like a homeless person, feeling stuck in limbo. But when I finally started the program in the third year, I met the person who became my partner for the following decade. A delay that initially felt pointless turned out to shape my life profoundly. It’s humbling to realize how life's detours can reveal landscapes, visible only in hindsight.

Sometimes the map reroutes you for reasons you won’t see until much later.

So if you can’t control every outcome, what can you control?

The clarity of your next decision. The ability to choose based on who you actually are—not who you’ve learned to act like. For me, that clarity started appearing when I shifted my attention inward. Not setting ambitious goals, but figuring out precisely where I stood by asking:

What’s loud in my life? What's missing? What patterns keep repeating? What choices are genuinely mine?

Once I had a clear sense of where I truly stood, I could start making conscious choices, fully aware of the trade-offs, and decide where I wanted to go, rather than defaulting to where I thought I should.

Consider, not just where you should go but also where you want to go.

Then came the practical work: developing skills, gathering tools, getting the right kind of support, and working toward emotional clarity and stability.

Once I started exploring these questions, I found myself in a whole new territory filled with unexpected tools and techniques. Some seemed unusual, unlikely to work or even intimidating at first, yet all led back to one central thing: understanding myself better.

If you’re anything like me, you're probably exploring similar terrain. In the posts ahead, I'll share what I found helpful; like meditation, journaling, Internal Family Systems, decision-making skills, building a healthy psychology around money, and growing healthy realtionships. You won’t get any prescriptions, by the way, just possibilities.

But first, let me tell you how randomly a journey like this can start. In the next post, you'll hear about a turning point that found me, not the other way around. Let’s just say:

I didn’t go looking for transformation but it found me anyway.

If you're curious about your own turning points, keep reading. Better yet, I'd love to hear from you—tell me where you're starting from. Did anything here make you pause, smile, or rethink? Share it. Your insight could be exactly what someone else needs to hear.