The Plan Worked. Now What?

At 22, I was pretty sure I knew how my life was supposed to go.

I had just graduated and was spending a semester finishing prerequisite courses before starting occupational therapy school that summer. I was living at home, working as a rehab tech at a Level 1 trauma center in pediatrics, navigating a long-distance relationship, and preparing for everyone’s favorite OT school rite of passage: anatomy.

If you’ve been through OT school, you already know.

That course about wrecked me.

There were multiple moments during that first semester when I thought, “Maybe I’m not supposed to be here.”

Fortunately, anatomy and I eventually came to an understanding. By understanding, I mean I survived.

Despite the occasional academic crisis, I was remarkably certain about my future.

I was going to be an occupational therapist.

I was going to work at the VA.

I was going to work with survivors of burns and limb loss.

I might even take the military route someday.

The plan was clear.

And if I’m being honest, I liked having a plan.

I also thought adulthood looked a lot like certainty.

Adults had things figured out.

Adults were organized.

Adults had confidence.

Adults knew what they were doing.

I kept waiting to become what I now refer to as the “adultier adult.”

You know the one.

The person who somehow knows how taxes work, remembers to schedule dentist appointments, and never has a minor identity crisis in the shampoo aisle.

I assumed that version of adulthood would arrive naturally.

Graduate.

Get the job.

Marry the love of your life.

Build a life.

Become an adult.

Simple.

What I didn’t realize was that I wasn’t just imagining a career.

I was imagining an ending.

I thought success was a destination.

Not in a money or title kind of way.

Success, to me, was always much simpler.

Success meant doing work I loved.

And I genuinely thought there would come a moment when I arrived.

A finish line.

A point where I could look around and think:

There it is.

I made it.

The funny thing is that a surprising amount of the plan actually worked.

I got a clinical placement at my dream job.

I landed my dream capstone.

My dream job hired me.

By nearly every metric that mattered to 22-year-old me, I was successful.

The plan worked.

And then something unexpected happened.

Life kept going.

Not in a disappointing way.

In a confusing way.

Because I realized that what I thought was a destination was actually another starting point.

I loved my job.

I loved the people.

I loved the work.

But over time I started noticing things I hadn’t noticed before.

New opportunities.

New specialties.

New interests.

Entire paths I didn’t know existed.

A fieldwork educator introduced me to aquatic therapy and an organization where I would eventually become certified and later teach.

Academia appeared.

Teaching appeared.

Writing appeared.

Opportunities emerged that weren’t even on my radar at 22.

And that realization was both exciting and unsettling.

Because certainty is comforting.

When you have a plan, you know where you’re going.

When you’re open to change, you don’t always know what comes next.

Then life threw in a few plot twists that definitely weren’t part of the original blueprint.

A global pandemic.

Burnout.

The emotional weight of supporting people through some of the hardest moments of their lives while simultaneously trying to navigate a healthcare system adapting in real time.

Twenty-two-year-old me never saw that coming.

Neither did most of us.

But if those years taught me anything, it’s that adaptability isn’t optional.

Life will eventually ask for it.

Sometimes gently.

Sometimes with all the subtlety of a brick through a window.

Somewhere along the way, my definition of success started changing.

At 22, success meant arriving.

Now I think success looks more like staying open.

Open to opportunities.

Open to change.

Open to discovering that the thing you thought was the finish line was actually a doorway.

Open to becoming someone you couldn’t have imagined before.

One of the things 22-year-old me got right was marrying the love of my life. My husband remains one of the best humans I know. He’s supportive, encouraging, endlessly patient with my random ideas, and somehow still willing to listen when I announce that I’ve had another life epiphany while snuggling the dog.

But one thing 22-year-old me got wrong was assuming the goal was certainty.

Looking back, I don’t think certainty was ever the goal.

Growth was.

Experience was.

Faith was.

Learning was.

Becoming was.

I used to think success meant becoming exactly who I planned to be.

Now I think success might be staying open enough to become someone I never planned for at all.

And honestly?

I’m grateful.

Because if life had followed my original blueprint perfectly, I would’ve missed so much of what eventually made it meaningful.

The plan worked.

But thankfully, life didn’t stop there.

TK