By Gwendolyn M. Ward, Principal at FOOW?

A young graduate told me she was feeling like a failure in her first job after college. Her job lacked formal training, leadership, and guidance. Although she was trying to work through it by asking various people for help and working overtime, she felt exhausted and unsuccessful.

I asked her what this experience taught her professionally and personally? Was she going to continue the cycle, hoping it would improve? Or, would she take her talent elsewhere? She didn’t have many answers, because she was struggling between the reality of her job versus the concept of it.

“The Paper versus Reality” conundrum is where we can find many life challenges and lessons. Whether it’s a job, relationship, marriage, business deal or whatever else that fit in the people, place, or thing categories in our lives…sometimes, it just sounds better on paper:

- A friend volunteered as a safety leader on her job’s safety team. Her responsibility included keeping a clipboard with employees’ names for a headcount in an event of an emergency. Recently, when the DC area had an earthquake, her immediate reaction was to run from the building as fast as she could. After catching her breath, she remembered she was on the safety team and realized » Read more: Career Tips: Career Lapses: Raw Talent, You, and Reality