For almost a year, I’ve been trying to figure out what comes next.
Last September, I left my last BPO job. I honestly thought I would be able to find my way into remote work fairly quickly. After all, I had experience. I had spent years working in corporate environments. I knew administration, communication, deadlines, customers, systems, and the general rhythm of getting things done when there are always ten other things competing for your attention.
I thought those years would make the transition easier.
So I started preparing.
I took trainings. I learned new tools. I explored work-from-home opportunities. I learned more about web design and funnels. I collected courses—probably more courses than I will ever admit to having finished. I experimented with AI, built a website, started writing again, and kept looking for the thing that might finally give all of this a direction.
And somewhere along the way, I started asking myself:
What exactly am I preparing for?
Because despite all that learning, I was still without a job.
Whenever the financial pressure became too loud, I would return to the easiest door I knew how to open: BPO.
I could usually get hired.
The harder part was staying.
Six months. Seven months, at most.
Eventually, I’d wear down. I’d leave, start over, and find myself back in the same uncomfortable place, wondering what I was doing wrong.
Maybe I wasn’t resilient enough.
Maybe I wasn’t skilled enough.
Maybe I’d fallen behind.
Maybe I needed another course.
So, naturally, I learned some more.
The Problem With Preparing for Everything
Looking back, I think I made a very human mistake.
I was trying so hard to become employable that I hadn’t really stopped to ask what kind of work actually fit me.
I kept collecting skills because skills felt like security.
If I learned web design, maybe that would be it.
If I learned funnels, maybe that would be it.
If I learned another platform, another tool, another system, perhaps that would finally be the thing that opened the right door.
But the more I learned, the more scattered I sometimes felt.
I’d look at something I had created months earlier and think, This looks so elementary now.
Then I’d see better websites, better funnels, better portfolios, people who seemed much further ahead, and that familiar feeling would creep back in.
Maybe I’m behind.
Maybe I should learn more.
Maybe I need to improve everything before I can show any of it to anyone.
What I didn’t understand then was that every time I looked at something I had created and thought, I would do this differently now, I was actually looking at evidence that I had grown.
The work hadn’t suddenly become bad.
I had simply learned enough to see what I couldn’t see before.
That realization changed the way I looked at the past year.
I wasn’t necessarily failing.
I was becoming someone different.
I just couldn’t see where all of it was going yet.
Then I Almost Closed My Laptop
Recently, I came across an opportunity I wasn’t even expecting.
It was an open-house recruitment event for a company opening in my city.
It was late. I was tired. I wasn’t feeling my best. And honestly, I didn’t feel particularly prepared.
There was a very reasonable part of me that could have said, Maybe next time.
But I went anyway.
I told myself I’d simply see what happened.
I went through the process onsite, completed the application and assessment, and met people from the company. I wasn’t expecting anything extraordinary. I was simply trying something.
Then something happened that I hadn’t anticipated.
Three different people saw three different possibilities for me.
One saw how my experience could potentially help a client.
Another saw me contributing to an e-commerce team in a leadership or senior capacity.
And the CEO himself saw a possible fit with executive assistance and operations.
I still don’t know which direction this will ultimately take. There are conversations and matching interviews still ahead, and I’m trying not to get too far ahead of myself.
But one thing stayed with me after that day.
I wasn’t walking into that room empty-handed.
For months, I had been thinking about everything I still needed to learn before I could become the person I wanted to be.
Yet other people were looking at what I already knew and seeing possibilities I hadn’t considered.
That was humbling.
And, honestly, a little surprising.
Maybe the Year Wasn’t Wasted
This is the part I wish someone had told me earlier.
Sometimes you spend months learning things that don’t immediately turn into a job.
Sometimes you build a website that looks completely different from what you’d build today.
Sometimes you take courses that don’t immediately pay for themselves.
Sometimes you explore several different directions and still aren’t sure which one is actually yours.
And sometimes you look at your life and think:
I’ve spent all this time preparing, and I still haven’t arrived anywhere.
I’ve had that thought more times than I’d like to admit.
But what if I wasn’t supposed to see the destination yet?
What if I was collecting pieces?
Corporate experience.
Communication.
Administration.
Technology.
AI.
Writing.
Teaching.
Design.
Operations.
Problem-solving.
Years of figuring things out when the instructions weren’t always clear.
On their own, those things can look unrelated.
Put them together, though, and they begin to tell a different story.
Perhaps that is what I couldn’t see while I was busy trying to find the next job.
I wasn’t starting over every time.
I was carrying everything with me.
And maybe that is why the recent opportunity felt so different. Other people could see connections between experiences that, in my own mind, had sometimes felt like completely separate chapters.
Maybe the year wasn’t the detour.
Maybe it was the preparation period I couldn’t recognize as preparation.
I Also Learned Something About Rejection
For a while, I thought I needed to apply everywhere.
More applications. More job boards. More agencies. More resumes. More chances.
It seemed logical. If I wasn’t getting anywhere, surely the answer was to increase the numbers.
But there was always something uncomfortable about imagining my name and profile scattered across every platform, collecting rejection after rejection.
I didn’t want to become another number in an applicant pool.
I wanted to find something that actually made sense.
And perhaps there’s nothing wrong with being selective about that.
Not every rejection means you weren’t good enough. Sometimes the role wasn’t right. Sometimes the timing wasn’t right. Sometimes they needed something different.
And sometimes, you’re trying very hard to squeeze yourself into a door that simply wasn’t built for you.
That doesn’t mean you stop trying.
It means you start paying attention to where the effort feels different.
When an Opportunity Feels More Aligned
I’m careful with the word alignment because I don’t believe every good opportunity is supposed to feel effortless.
Work is still work.
Growth is still uncomfortable.
And nothing is guaranteed.
But there is something different about an opportunity that connects with who you already are.
You don’t have to invent an entirely new version of yourself just to qualify.
You simply have to recognize the value of the experience you’ve already accumulated.
That was probably what surprised me most about that recruitment event.
I arrived feeling unprepared.
Yet somehow, the things I’d been doing for years made sense to other people.
They could see possibilities in the combination.
Maybe that’s what alignment feels like.
Not necessarily easy.
Not necessarily certain.
Just a little lighter.
To Anyone Who Feels Behind
If you’re reading this while feeling like you’ve spent months learning, applying, trying, failing, and wondering whether any of it will ever lead somewhere, I hope you don’t immediately conclude that you’ve wasted your time.
Maybe the course you took will connect to something you learn six months from now.
Maybe the skill you thought was insignificant will become the reason someone chooses you later.
Maybe the project you’re embarrassed by is simply an earlier version of yourself. And the fact that you can see its flaws now might be one of the clearest signs that you’ve grown.
I’ve also learned that constantly reinventing yourself isn’t always the answer.
Sometimes you need to stop and look at what you’ve already gathered.
Because when we’re focused on everything we still lack, it’s surprisingly easy to overlook everything we’ve already become.
I Still Don’t Know What Comes Next
And I’m okay with that.
I don’t know exactly where this new opportunity will lead. I don’t know whether it will become the job I’ve been hoping for or simply another interesting chapter in the story.
For once, I don’t feel the need to rush to write the ending.
I’m simply grateful that I showed up.
Even when I wasn’t feeling my best.
Even when I didn’t feel ready.
Even when I thought I was just trying one more thing.
Because sometimes the most important step isn’t being perfectly prepared.
Sometimes it’s simply deciding to go anyway.
And perhaps, somewhere along the way, you discover that you were never really starting from zero.
You were carrying years of experience, curiosity, mistakes, lessons, and skills with you.
You just hadn’t figured out how they fit together yet.
Maybe I wasn’t lost after all.
Maybe I was building.
— Mari Señeres
A Note for Anyone Still Figuring It Out
If your career feels scattered right now, don’t be too quick to dismiss the pieces.
The job that didn’t work out, the course you took, the skill you picked up because you were curious, the project that feels outdated now, the experience that doesn’t seem relevant anymore—some of those things may make much more sense when you look back at them from a little further away.
You don’t have to know exactly what everything is for.
Keep learning. Keep experimenting. Keep paying attention to what fits.
And every once in a while, stop and look behind you.
You may be further along than you think.
About The Mari Effect
The Mari Effect exists to help founder-led businesses replace operational chaos with calm, clarity, and confidence through business systems, executive workflows, strategic websites, and CRM automation.
Because technology isn’t the goal.
Helping people work better is.
Have You Ever Looked Back and Realized You Were Building All Along?
I’d love to hear your story.
Maybe your career has taken a few turns you never expected. Maybe you’ve collected skills that didn’t seem connected at the time. Or perhaps you’re in the middle of that uncertain season right now, wondering what all your effort is actually leading toward.
Sometimes we don’t recognize the pattern while we’re living it.
We see it later.
And if you’re at a point where you’re looking for calmer operations, clearer systems, and a trusted strategic partner for the next stage of your business, I’d be happy to explore what we can build together.
