You didn't miss THE opportunity, you missed AN opportunity

Sometime back, while I was scrolling through Instagram, trying to fall asleep, I came across this video where a lady, whose account I cannot find for the life of me, talked about missing opportunities and how gut-wrenching it can be to feel you missed something that may never happen again. As if you've missed your ultimate break in life.

Then, a few days later, I found another video with a similar topic, where this other lady affirmed that if you were supposed to be a different person, live or go elsewhere, do something else, etc... you would. You would have the experience you needed to be in a different reality, but if that hasn't happened yet, you still have things to learn.

She talked about learning from the current seasons of our lives and deeply surrendering to the fact what is meant to be, will inevitably be, sooner or later. If not, it was simply never meant to find you.

The opportunity I thought I'd missed

As someone recovering from severe burnout and now seeing some close friends go through the same struggles, that thought resonated with me.

After my last crisis and my inability to work for several months, I thought I'd missed my break in my professional life. How come I was only 26 and already had to put my career on hold to recover from burnout? I wasn't a C-level executive or a big director in some multinational company yet and certainly didn't have that sort of responsibility and decision-making power on my back at this point.

What does that say about my professional future and my ability to grow or lead teams? Is that simply not on the cards for me? I don't think that's the case, but I can't know for sure.

What I'm trying to do now is embrace the fact that what happened to me, happened for a reason. I, now, see it as a time when I learned about my boundaries, what works for me and what doesn't, how I deal with pressure, and what really matters to me aside from the whole "successful career and rapid growth at a young age" us corporate millennials were taught to seek out.

What happened after my burnout

After my burnout episode, I actually moved to a beautiful 2-story house, had a chance to rest and sleep A LOT, take care of myself, dive deeper into my own mind, create this blog and make sense of my new reality.

I slowly got back up, started working part-time as a project manager with amazing people doing amazing things, and finally found the company I work for now.

Last week, I actually got to meet my team in person in Buenos Aires and spent a packed weekend with them, full of laughter, work, drinks, outings, and growing closer together.

That is all to say that I might have missed AN opportunity to continue my professional journey through another path that might have brought me as much happiness, but I'm happy with where I find myself now. This is what was meant to find me.

X.O

IAS