Knowing When to Pivot and When to Persist

There will be times, personally and professionally, when you will have to make a decision about pushing forward or letting go of something. We are often taught to have an unwavering commitment to our goals, to not let challenges deter us, and to become the champion of our own success. While all of these things are important lessons, there is also great value in knowing when to change direction. This is not a sign of failure, but rather a sign of rational decision making. 

Not everything will go exactly as planned in life, but we can and should adapt. Pivoting in a new direction does not mean that we are giving up on our end goal, but it does mean that we are pursuing it in a different manner. Because we invest so much of our time and energy into the projects we work on, we can become emotionally attached to them. It gives us a sense of obligation to see the project through, and we feel disappointed when we hit a roadblock. We can also lose sight of what our actual goal is, which disrupts our ability to move forward.

This was a really difficult lesson for me to learn when I was working for the student newspaper at my university. I would have an idea for a story, but it would  not always pan out, and I did not want to let it go. However, the end goal was to produce a story that would be published in the paper for others to read. The goal was not necessarily about how I found a meaningful topic or what exactly the story was. This meant that the story could change shape as I was writing it because of the information that I had gathered, or it meant that the story was not going to be possible because of a lack of people who agreed to an interview, the wrong timing, not enough value, or a number of other things.

The first time I had to let go of a story felt devastating. I started to doubt myself and my abilities, but rather than giving up entirely, I brainstormed new ideas, and I found another topic that my editors approved of. I turned in the story that week, and it was printed in the campus newspaper the next day. I still reached my end goal, even though the achievement looked different than I had anticipated.

Making adjustments is often a difficult but necessary step in creating forward progress. Furthermore, one of the greatest skills we can learn in business is knowing when to pivot and when to persist. Changing direction does not mean giving up; it just means that we have to find a new way forward.

-Meghan Slaughter