Hello, everyone 😊 I’m Deanna!

I want to share how God has been guiding me through a season of waiting and how I have been working to trust God’s plan for my future.

A year and a half ago, I moved from a long season of action into a season of waiting. I hit a point of intense academic burnout about two weeks into a year-long program that I was in to prepare for graduate school to become a speech therapist. My burnout forced me to reconsider my career path.

I decided that graduate school was not an option for me. So, I put my plans for speech therapy on hold. Moving from a clear path into a period of figuring out a new direction was difficult because I blamed myself for not taking the right steps in planning my professional career. I did not see my season of waiting as one that would allow me to slow down, reflect, and develop. Rather, I felt out of touch with myself.

—

I am someone who wants to have a purpose that I can fulfill through my career. What matters most to me is a way to make a difference in spaces that are important to me.

When I got to college I couldn’t wait to find a career field that could help me find my purpose. I sought out my ultimate vision – the one field where I could live out my true purpose well. I craved the idea of finding a space that I was simply made for.

Over the next four years, I seriously considered six career fields. Each field brought excitement and novelty, and I thoroughly researched its opportunities. I invested emotionally into each potential field because I was sure I’d find my purpose within one of them. When I finally settled on speech therapy, I was certain that I had found my perfect fit. I spent the last year-and-a-half of college preparing to transition into that field from psychology (my major in college). I had clear goals for myself and knew what I wanted to do to make a difference within speech therapy.

When I had to pause those goals due to burnout, I was crushed. I had finally committed to a direction after four years of searching, but now I had to start back at step one. The other career paths I had previously considered in college also required graduate school, so they were not realistic options. Any other idea I had was stopped by my mistrust in my judgment.

As I continued my year-long program, I was unable to let go of the belief that I could discover my own purpose through my career. The need to find my purpose warred against my unwillingness to be wrong again in what I thought my purpose was, and it caused a lot of stress in my life. I didn’t want to think about it, but I was worried that I didn’t have a purpose at all. I felt completely directionless.

I began to impatiently ask God for direction for my next steps. Instead of taking a breath and putting my emotions and future in His hands fully, I desperately asked for an idea to come to me. I shrunk my world because I didn’t want to try something new and fail at it, which is how I viewed my speech therapy journey. I wanted a surefire sign of my purpose from God. But I also didn’t trust myself to be able to recognize His sign.

—

So where am I now?

I am still without my elusive “true purpose”. But I am learning to let go of my obsession with finding it. I have stopped berating God through prayer for a sign and have instead asked Him for the courage to touch the world again without a full plan.

To be truthful, I have not completely shifted into a healthier mindset yet. It has been a slow and painful process. But I have improved my perspective.

I am blessed with family and friends who encouraged me to self-reflect and consider different career options. Through reflection, I’ve become more aware of myself and my interests. God has also blessed me with the courage to start trying things again. I now see every experience as a learning experience, which means that I’ll never “fail” by trying something new. I’ll just get more knowledgeable about myself and the world. I’ve reframed my fear into a tender excitement that I will grow from any job experience I get.

God has a plan for me, and I have finally started to prioritize that belief over my understanding of what His plan may be. Perhaps His plan requires me to do more growing, so I can walk strongly through future experiences. Perhaps His plan for me involves a career field that doesn’t quite exist yet (perhaps it is up to me to create it). I cannot fully understand God’s plan, but I can understand that it exists. That is all I need to believe in to have hope for my future.

What about you? Are you in a season of waiting?

Maybe you’re desperately looking for your purpose. Maybe you don’t know where to start with selecting a college, major, or career.

I encourage you to reflect on the things you enjoy doing and learning about. No matter what, life is more endurable when you are working with things that naturally interest you. Personally, I am certain that whatever I do with my future will relate back to psychology and helping people. I adore the brain and the way it shapes human behavior, and I want to work in a space that allows me to engage with those topics while helping others. I also love many other topics. Reflecting on the things I enjoy allowed me to realize that there are other agreeable avenues I can take as I’m looking for a path forward.

Back in high school, I came across a quote that went along these lines: “God strengthens us by giving us everything at once or nothing at once”.

In seasons of both waiting and action, God encourages us to grow and reflect. From the perspective of waiting, it is easy to imagine how much we can grow in a season of action. However, remember that important growth occurs during the “nothing at once”, too. God’s plan for you will never crumble, and when it is time, He will move you into a season of action. Remember that He has a plan and let yourself flow into your next steps with gentleness and hope. You can, and will, grow.

About the Author:

Deanna Trosino is a student who graduated from Villanova University with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. She recently completed a Communication Sciences and Disorders post-baccalaureate certificate and a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate. She is seeking to pursue a career at the intersection of psychology, language, and culture, and desires to improve the spaces of connectivity and communication between citizens in a globalizing world. She adores learning, listening to music, seeing new places, and spending time with loved ones.