My ten year high school reunion seems to have triggered some retrospective thinking; mostly about how I got from being a fifteen year-old freshman to having a job I love.

I’m not one of the lucky ones, those who actually followed through with their 8 year-old dream to become a doctor or a chef. Nor did I have any great mentor who shepherded me through all my career decisions.

I found a job I love by following a process.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” -Steve Jobs

I must disagree with Steve here. One can’t blindly take job after job thinking everything will make sense only upon reflection. I’d wager Mr. Jobs would agree. Retrospection does lend itself to learning and discovering things you didn’t grasp initially, but in the present you need to be acutely aware of why you’re making certain decisions.

At some point I received the advice that your career needs to tell a story. Each job on your resume is a stepping stone towards what you ultimately want to do. That’s the seed from which I grew my process.

In it’s simplest form, for every job or internship you ever hold locate the parts of the role you enjoy. Then, ensure your next career jump maximizes that aspect. Like a photo on an iPhone, pinch and zoom-in on the parts that make you happy. Don’t connect the dots looking backwards, connect them looking forwards.

Every experience has positives and negatives, your first internship may have a lot of negatives, but evaluate the pieces you enjoyed doing, because that’s what you want to do more of. Rinse and repeat, and in a few years you should find yourself in a job optimized to your interests and goals.

As you advanced through your industry add another level to you grading rubric. Project out your career based on the path that role takes you. Do you want to do what your boss is doing? What about their boss? Do you want to run the company one day? Lofty goals, yes, but crucial to understanding if you’ve found a place to further your career.

Not only does wanting to rise in a company help you find a job you love, but it helps you stay ambitious and challenged. Becoming complacent in a career is like being in a gas leak, at first it feels groovy, but one day you wake up and realize you’ve wasted three years sniffing gas.

Caveat time. Am I suggesting you job hop your way from role to role forever? No. Obviously this is not a sustainable behavior for the rest of your life. This a process specific to early in your career to find a job that you love.

If you don’t love your job do you have to leave the company? Maybe. Don’t forget to look for opportunities where you work, there could be a better match only an internal transfer away. Like building credit, it’s always better to stay with one credit card then to jump around. But I will say, gone are the days of 45 years at IBM right out of college.

Businesses are focused on what’s best for the business. I like to think of myself as a business. Like how a corporation hires a consulting firm, a company hires me. As as I improve the company they become more valuable, and as they improve me I become more valuable. If that value exchange ever becomes unbalanced, it’s time for a renegotiation.