When I was young, there was a map. Instructions to follow to have a good Life. It looked a lot like a game board, now that I think back on it.

• Go to college (or don’t, but definitely go to college so you can get a good job). 

• Get a job in your field. 

• Get married. 

• Buy a house. 

• Start a family. 

• Collect a paycheck.

• Pay taxes. 

• Spin the wheel. 

• Roll the dice. 

• Drive on down the road. 

• Overcome obstacles along the way. 

The player who dies with the most stuff wins.

Is this the game?

Now that I’ve checked all the boxes–mostly in order–I’m sitting here in that nebulous middle of life. And I never imagined it would look like this. If I’m being honest, I never really pictured much beyond those boxes at all.

I went to college. I chose a liberal arts major because I was told the bachelor of arts degree would get me into a good career. It didn’t.

I graduated in 2001. A year that life as we knew it changed in ways we couldn’t have anticipated. So I did the next thing and started working full time. Not in my field, whatever that would have been with an English degree, but at a bookstore, which felt as close as I could get at the time.

In college, I dated the man who would become my husband. We got married. We bought a condo in the Washington, DC area. In 2006. Followed by another few years that saw things like the real estate market fail to play out as anticipated.

We had our first baby in 2007. We had another in 2012 and sold our condo on a short sale to avoid foreclosure. We had a third baby in 2014, and I still didn’t know what I wanted to do for a living after having worked a number of part-time positions while balancing motherhood, spouse-hood and person-hood throughout my childbearing years.

And that’s kind of where I stopped looking to check the boxes. I had everything I ever wanted, and aside from a few bumps along the way, it worked out okay. I’d been there and done that. College. Check. Job. Check, but it was never a career. Marriage. Check. Kids. Check. Taxes. Check. Check. Check to infinity. I’ve done all the things, and mostly in the order in which I was told to do them. 

I’m an adult. I have a house and a mortgage and a ton of student loan debt. The map didn’t really get me where I thought it would. In some ways, it did: I had everything I thought I wanted in life. Which was great until it wasn’t. I still needed something to do, somewhere to go, something to learn, someone to serve. I was called to be more than “okay.” So I started a business. I returned to my passions. I designed my own map. And now I’m playing my own game. 

Doing all the “right” things led to some unexpected challenges and disappointments, along with some incredible blessings. Over the years, I’ve learned that the same game board won’t necessarily work out well for everyone. There has to be a larger goal at the end than counting up all the colorful paper money and comparing piles with your competitors. Maybe there’s even a way for everyone to win.

What I’ve learned from the game of real life is that relationships matter more than scorecards. Passion doesn’t always lead to a profession, but it can. A degree is just a piece of paper, but the process of earning it is where the real value is. Learning can happen anywhere. Life is here and now. And when I get to the end of the game, I don’t care how much stuff I have as long as the people I leave behind feel grateful to have had me in their lives. I’m already a winner because I’m here to play.

Whether you’re just starting out on your journey, spinning that wheel for the first time, or you’re already a seasoned traveler on this colorful path, I want to encourage you to step off the board every once in a while. Go where there is no map. Figuring out what YOUR game board is going to look like is probably the best thing you can do for yourself. You’re not meant to fit into a mold. Checking someone else’s boxes on a list from a different era is not going to get you to YOUR best life. Creating your own version of success is going to take you further than anything else.

If you want certain things for your life because you think having them will fulfill you, challenge this expectation. Because fulfillment is rarely found in things. Underneath those desires might be programming. Someone told you that this way or that way is how to win at life. Ask if it’s true for you. It might be. But it might be coming from outside of you. Look instead at the kind of person you want to be. When you get to the end of the road, what’s going to mean the most? Where you lived or how you lived? What you had or how you made people feel?

I’m not here to dump on the game of Life. I think the board game did what it did well. It introduced young people like me to the concepts of functioning as an adult in a certain section of society in a fun and colorful way. At the same time, it has its limits. Human imagination, power and our capacity for expansion is actually limitless. Anything is possible. Everyone can win.

If you are interested in talking about some of your life aspirations to see how they align with your current identity and the person you are looking to become, set up a free discovery call with me so I can show you how coaching can help you create your own game for the winning.