Last night my client’s coaching session turned quickly on a sentence I suspect many adults carry around like a default setting: “I honestly thought I’d have this figured out by now.” In this case, “this” was the client’s tendency to get rattled every time work became ambiguous, political, or emotionally inconvenient… which is to say, WORK.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!My response: “What would you have figured out?”
“Life.”
That’s where people get into trouble. They treat life as though it is meant to become easier. As though there is a hidden level where the music changes, the fog lifts, and you finally move through your days with the confidence of a person who has read the manual. Meanwhile, life keeps behaving much more like a role-playing game.
You do not begin fully equipped. You have a few usable strengths, some deeply average stats, and at least one response pattern that made sense in an earlier chapter but is now getting you chased around the map. Then the game expands… new terrain, trickier opponents… the questline becomes less “learn the basics” and more “handle this conversation without losing your composure, your credibility, or your Tuesday.”
That is why I like the metaphor. It explains growth without turning it into a personality crisis.
A difficult conversation is not always evidence that something is wrong. Sometimes it is the exact moment a new skill is being earned. A setback is often just experience points wearing an ugly outfit. Even those frustrating stretches when nothing seems to be happening may be building patience, judgment, or restraint, which are admittedly the least glamorous upgrades in the game but very useful later.
What traps people is the belief that struggle means they are behind, when often it merely means the level changed.
Nobody picks up a controller, enters a harder stage, and says, “This is outrageous. I thought after Level 9 they would mostly applaud.” Yet we expect versions of that in real life all the time. We are shocked that the next season requires more from us than the last, as if adulthood should have plateaued somewhere around competent email tone. It does not.
There is no final level you really WANT to reach. No polished little ending in which you are declared complete and excused from further development. The real win is becoming more capable, more flexible, and less easily taken out by things that would once have knocked you flat.
That is where SNAK can help…
SKILLS: What is this season requiring you to get better at?
NETWORK: Who has already cleared this level and can save you from unnecessary wandering?
ACTIVITY: What repeated action would move you forward, even if it is not exciting?
KNOWLEDGE: What do you need to understand better so this stops feeling personal and starts feeling strategic?
That is how people level up in real life. Not all at once, not elegantly, BUT a little at a time, every day. So, spill it, what has your current level been trying to teach you?
