How can we know when we’ve found our calling? Though in many ways our journeys as Baret Scholars and human beings are still beginning, we feel a need to find that special thing we are meant for. Not just a job or a career, but a vocation, a passion and calling. How will we know when we’re where we’re meant to be?

Robbie Myers, the Editor who made ELLE into the titanic fashion magazine it is today, talked to us on the penultimate day of the NYC Morning Program about her own journey. Her early years were a winding journey, changing schools multiple times when she was an adolescent, so that she got used to saying goodbye to friends. Her early career had its fair share of rejection and disappointment as well. When asked what carried her through, Robbie insisted it was nothing more than the fact that she was doing what she wanted to do.

Through it all, she said she listened to her own intuition. “You should love what you do,” she told us, or you should move on. And when she was asked how to overcome own self-doubt, she said “Follow your curiosity, and confidence will naturally follow.” She emphasized that failure is part of the game, and it’s not even really failure, if you have the right attitude. She emphasized that “it’s just as important to know how to lose as it is to win.” We may not know immediately what we’re meant to do or how we’re meant to do it, but if we learn from our mistakes, we can do anything.

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We found that reassuring. We will, all of us, have a year to find and refine our goals. We wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re mourning the first leg of our trip, but reflecting? Absolutely. We’ve heard from so many monumental figures in just one short month. Their journeys are myriad, but they all agree on one thing: it’s only work if you’re doing something you don’t want to do.