Ask an adult you respect how they actually got their job. The real answer is often not the official path.

Described careers are tidy and actual careers are not. The official version runs through the right course and the right application, while the real one usually involves an accident, a contact, a job taken for the money and a sideways move nobody planned. Hearing the real sequence shows you how much room there is, which the tidy version hides.

Ask somebody whose work you respect what the path actually was, step by step, including the parts that went nowhere. Let them be unflattering about it. Collect three of these and the whole question looks less narrow.