Man, sometimes you just wanna know what’s gonna hit you at work, right? Like, you wake up, you got your coffee, and you just wish someone could tell you, “Hey, this is what July 2024 is gonna look like for your career.” No surprises, no curveballs. Just a straight shot. But let me tell you, life ain’t ever that simple. My whole journey with work, it’s been one big lesson in tossing out expectations and just figuring things out as I go. Like a lot of folks, I’ve had my share of knocks, and honestly, that’s where the real learning happened.
I remember this one time, it was a few years back, I was deep into this project, you know? Thought I had it all mapped out. I was pulling crazy hours, fueled by caffeine and the sheer belief that this was it. This was my big break, the thing that would finally push me forward. I was building this whole new system for inventory management for a small local business, thinking it was gonna be a game-changer for them, and for my portfolio too. I busted my ass, designed every screen, wrote every line of code. I mean, I lived and breathed that thing for months.
Then, outta nowhere, the rug got pulled. The owner, a real stand-up guy, called me into his office, looking all grim. Said his main supplier just up and vanished. Like, ghosted him. No warning. Everything he built his business on, gone. He couldn’t afford to finish the project, couldn’t even keep his doors open much longer. He apologized profusely, offered me what he could, which wasn’t much, and just like that, my big project, my big break, turned into a pile of digital dust. I walked out of there feeling like a deflated balloon.
For a few weeks, I was just spinning my wheels. I’d wake up, stare at the ceiling, thinking, “What now?” All that effort, all that passion, just kinda evaporated. I tried to apply for other gigs, but my head wasn’t in it. Every interview felt like a chore, every rejection felt like another punch. It was a proper funk, the kind where you start questioning everything you thought you knew about your path.
But you can’t just sit there forever, can you? Bills don’t pay themselves, and my fridge wasn’t gonna magically fill up. So, I started small. I decided, alright, the big project crapped out, but the skills didn’t. I still knew how to code, how to design, how to solve problems. I just needed a new problem to solve, even if it was a tiny one.
Shifting Gears, One Step at a Time
- First, I cleaned up my existing code. I went back to all my old side projects, even the ones I thought were kinda lame. I refactored stuff, made it cleaner, readable. It was like therapy, honestly. Just getting my hands dirty with something I could control.
- Then, I started reaching out. Not for big jobs, not yet. Just to old colleagues, friends, anyone who might know someone who needed a little help. “Got any tiny tasks? Any odd jobs?” I asked. I wasn’t proud. I needed to work, needed to feel useful.
- I picked up some odd gigs. A friend of a friend needed a landing page built in a hurry. Another one needed some data entry automated. These weren’t the glamorous, big-impact projects I dreamt of, but they were work. They paid a few bucks, kept my skills sharp, and more importantly, they got me out of my head.
- I forced myself to learn something new. I saw a bunch of chatter about this new framework, something completely different from what I usually used. I figured, what the hell? No big project on the horizon, so why not dive deep? I spent evenings and weekends just hammering away at tutorials, building little pointless apps, just to get a feel for it. No pressure, just pure learning.
That really was the turning point. By not trying to force a big comeback, by just focusing on showing up and doing the next small thing, I started to gain momentum. Those little gigs led to slightly bigger ones. The new framework I learned? That actually landed me a much better contract a few months later, for a company that was really pushing the envelope with it. It wasn’t planned, wasn’t something I saw coming at all.
Looking back, what I expected at work for that period, or even generally, just got tossed out the window. My “practice record” wasn’t about perfectly executing a grand plan. It was about adapting, about being humble enough to take the small steps, and about realizing that sometimes, the best way forward is just to keep moving, even if you don’t know exactly where you’re headed. So yeah, for July 2024, or any month for that matter, my expectation for work is pretty simple: be ready for anything, and just keep at it, no matter what shows up.
