Sometimes it’s hard, when you’re in the middle of the process, to see the actual progress you’re making. It may even be that you have no idea how the skills you’re learning will be useful in your hoped-for future. You may have to get creative to figure that out, but any new skill or piece of knowledge is potentially useful.

When I was in college I thought I wanted to be an engineer. I spent a whole year in calculus and programming classes and was in way way over my head. I gave that up quickly and wound up in communication and journalism, writing and editing at the school paper and getting a broad base of language and communication skills.

I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up and wound up in a circuitous route of house sitting, horse training, and eventually found myself working for a small publishing company on the other side of the country. The primary focus of this company was textbooks. The first two projects I worked on were engineering and programming textbooks. I magically happened to be the exact target audience for both of these books and was able to copy edit the text and proofread the code with a base of knowledge that no one else in the company had. I didn’t anticipate I’d be using my basic programming knowledge in my editing job – or really ever again.

When I failed the bar exam and was panicking about how I would make ends meet, I got a job at a retail store selling professional women’s clothing. I figured if I ever did need to dress like a lawyer I could use a suit with an employee discount. I wound up finding it one of the most valuable training platforms a budding litigator could ask for. My job was to build a rapport with people over the course of a very brief interaction and get them to trust my judgment when I tell them something looks nice or I have a suggestion or a different color would suit better. It taught me to pay attention to body language and facial expressions that I see on judges’ faces to this day. The courtroom is very like a sales floor in a lot of ways and that job set me up for success in my preferred career.

We have no idea what’s in store for us. We have no idea what skills we happen to pick up when we are just trying to get by may actually be the very thing that sets us apart from others in our goal career or future plan.

Don’t underestimate the value of the thing you’re learning in any given opportunity. You have no idea what you may need or where you may go in your future path so exploring the options you have at your disposal and gleaning all the knowledge you can from those options, is a valuable thing.

It can be discouraging when you have a setback or you don’t see the progress you want from a sustained effort. But don’t disregard the other areas where you may be progressing. You’re learning something every day. You’re moving in a direction every day. It may not be the direction you wanted, but there may be value in the direction you’re going anyway. It may come in very useful at some future point. Stay the course.