In my first real job, I seemed to constantly have to have this same conversation.

(I say first real job because I had 4 different jobs in my first year out of college which I always like to share for anybody in the early stages of their career and feeling like everybody else has it all figured out. This is your reminder that most people's reality is messier than it looks!)

I would talk with my boss about what was next for my growth and we would come to the same point. I was great at pitching and the new business side of my role but I was also strong at the operations work. He would ask: "which one do you want to focus on?" I would say: "both."

We ran this in circles until there came a point where the business really needed someone to specialize in each role and I wasn't willing to pick between the two. I started job searching and my team happily supported me moving onto a new role that involved both.

But this wasn't the first time this pattern had come up in my life!

Being a child of divorce, I bounced between two different houses growing up. My mom's side of the family loved theater and the finer things in life. My dad's side leaned sports and low key. While there were pro's and con's in both scenarios, ultimately if you asked me which one I liked, the answer was both!

As I aged into my thirties, I was struggling with the next stage of my career progression and also coming to terms with a life where I didn't want to place a premium on my career anymore. If you asked me if I wanted to be successful in my career, build something I'm proud of or focus on my life and relationships, the answer was (and is) both! Did I want to live by the beach (as I do in Nantucket in the summer) or the city? You guessed it... both!

In this stage of my life, I'm learning how to accept the both in my life. Not asking things to make quite so much sense and cleanly into a box, whether it's describing my feelings, what I do for work, or where I want to live and realizing that so much of life has space for both. It might not look traditional, require a few extra logistics or my more open communication.

People may tell you that if you don't focus on one thing you won't be successful and while there's a nugget of truth in the fact that multi-tasking is basically a form of distraction, that doesn't mean there isn't a way to make it work.

This continues to inform a lot of things about my life, including what I write about here! So just in case you missed it, I'm continuing to explore writing about a variety of topics that I feel like I have some big sister advice to offer, including:

• Dating - If you're worried you'll be alone forever, How to make the dating apps not suck​
• Confidence - How to build confidence from scratch, if I could tell my mid-20s self one thing​
• Travel (and digital nomad life) - How to choose which city to move to, Everywhere I ate in Nashville​
• Money - Books that changed my mindset about money, Credit Score 101​

Whether you're interested in all of the above or just one or two, I'm so glad you're here and I hope this can be a little reminder today that you don't need to fit cleanly into one box. If you feel like there are different parts of you pushing through, it's time to allow them both!

Love your internet big sis,

Samantha