Usually the next step in life unfolds in a way that is almost impossible to miss if your eyes are trained to notice.
When something you’ve been intrigued by and reading and thinking about gets brought up by a friend in one context, a colleague in another, and a totally disparate interest also intersects with it all within a few weeks or months, it’s usually pointing somewhere you should probably go.
As the threads layer thicker and thicker, the path becomes clearer. Where there is only a single thread or single interest or idea or relationship, and pursuing it does not results in multiple others weaving in, it’s probably a dead end.