When nothing seems to be going right, persistence is vital, writes Jim Bright.

Julie from Kings Cross is exasperated. She writes: "I am feeling completely frustrated. Five years ago I planned to complete my legal training and then go and work for a large commercial law firm. Three years ago my boyfriend crashed his motorbike. I was riding pillion and was badly injured. My boyfriend wasn't even scratched. I [later] discovered he had been seeing my best friend while I was in rehabilitation."

"Just when I was better I found out and got depressed. Law went out the window. A year ago I started work as a legal secretary but had to leave after being sexually harassed by the partner. I was then about to open a retail clothes and jewellery store but an almost identical concept store opened where I was going to lease premises. I feel like everything I touch fails."

My heart goes out to Julie. She has had a nightmare five years. Sadly, many others have also shared Julie's frustrations as their career plans get overtaken by events they never imagined could have happened. For Julie, it was not a case of one isolated event after another; rather, the bike crash interrupted studies and her errant boyfriend (ex, I'm presuming) compounded his errors by destroying two of Julie's most valued relationships. People have become depressed about a lot less than Julie had to contend with.

However, there are signs of optimism for Julie. She is clearly a resilient person. She was able to pick herself up and get a good job as a legal secretary. It was not her fault she had a pig of a boss. It suggests her ambition to pursue law as a career was still intact despite her setbacks. It makes me wonder why her next move was to open a shop.

On the face of it, and without knowing more about Julie's circumstances, the retail option looks odd. I would want to explore with her whether she has been put off law by the harassment. If that turns out to be the case, I'd want to help her change her thinking to appreciate that most legal jobs are free from this kind of problem - at least, as free of harassment as any other professional role. If she was reacting to this man's behaviour she was, in effect, letting him control her career choices. This is hardly likely to be a recipe for success.

Although it is a bitter pill to swallow, despite our best laid plans, things do not always go the way we want and chance events can and do intrude into the most ordered of lives. It is a mistake to believe chance events are one-off experiences. My research shows chance is commonplace and most of us experience chance events every day. It is just that most of these unplanned events are so low in impact we forget or overlook them.

The appropriate response to the inherent uncertainty in most things is to do what Julie has been doing - keep trying, keep experimenting, persist and appreciate that while you may have experienced negative chance events, there is no reason why you might not experience more positive ones in the future. To increase the chances of that, it is best to keep trying.

Jim Bright is professor of career education and development at ACU and a partner at Bright and Associates, a career management consultancy. Email marked clearly "FOR PUBLICATION" to brightside@jimbright.com.