To follow up on my last post about "following your dream" I really should clarify that your dream needs to be REALISTIC and plays to your NATURAL TALENTS.
Why?....
Remember that bull-shit story all us Gen-X, Y, Zs were told as kids by our #BoomerParents? You know the one,
"Choose to do the thing you love, and you'll never work a day in your life."
Ya, no, that's not how success works.
Nor job/life fulfilment.
Nor work/life balance.
Nor happiness.
Pursuing the thing you love won't make you happy, or successful - because sometimes what you love you're not good at.
What you love you may find super interesting and be passionate about, but that doesn't mean you'll be good at doing a job in that field in the real world. We were taught to think of things we "do" as roles and titles vs skills and activities. This is where I feel like many children got confused when choosing their career paths.
Let me explain...
I love human history, evolution, behaviour, psychology, art history, fine art etc. I love learning, expanding my mind, and drawing connections between the things I see and experience around me. This has led me to explore careers in:
Anthropology
Archaeology
Psychology
Fine Art
Museum Studies
And several other very academic careers.
But you know what I'm not naturally good at and have to work REALLY hard just to meet my competitors - reading dense texts and writing serious academic papers. I love doing it, but I have reading and writing disabilities which mean I can only match my competition but never become a front runner.
This has been a BIG problem in all of these listed professions where competition is fierce and your career is often determined on your research and writing success. So even though I love learning and exploring these fields, I'm not good at working in them professionally, which has led to A LOT of stress.
Pursuing a career in any of these fields not only made me miserable but very financially unstable. It's very difficult to watch your savings dwindle when you're working night and day to get a position in the industry you have your heart and future staked on, to only receive constant rejection because you're not good enough.
I took a break to reassess what to do next, and I tried a bunch of other things, jumped a few industries, and discovered;
I'm naturally business-minded,
I've got OCD levels or organisation and people/project coordination skills,
I'm very personable,
I've got a knack for sales and negotiating,
I instinctively know how to lead large groups of people to work together and succeed.
It's important to note at this identification stage that what you do with your career needs to not only have short and longterm goals with growth options, but you need to consider the lifestyle and day-to-day activities that come with it.
It's great to aspire to a high-profile position like CEO or Director, but if what you are required to do to get there you're just not good at it and are repeatedly met with disappointment, and the hours/pay/travel/work environment/colleagues don't meet your needs, you're not going to be happy.
I learned early that lifestyle is very important when choosing a career. You have to think about what you're day-to-day and week-to-week looks like just as much as the job itself.
There's always some part of a job no one likes. But if that's most of your week and you only enjoy the perks of the work like the paycheck, company parties, prestige or freedom to work from anywhere, is it really worth the 2,000+ hours a year you spend doing that work? I would hope the answer is no - unless it's temporary and will get you to a more desirable position.
But back to my growth story...
With these natural skills in hand, all of which bring me joy in simply doing, I went back to the industries I wanted to work in to think about how I could apply these. The aim was to find something I love doing daily, I'm good at, and is in demand.
I mapped out every possible job I could get with the knowledge and skills I already possessed. I identified where and how many knowledge and skills holes I had that needed filling for each possible position, how to fill them, picked a few real job positions I knew I could do immediately, and just started networking and applying...
...2 weeks later, I had a dream job building a business (remotely) for a visual artist in Berlin, a part of the world I'd wanted to work in for a while. And as it turns out, I'm an ideal businesswoman for arts and cultural organisations in the public and private sectors, which I love doing and is in desperate need everywhere all the time.
I misunderstood, "do the thing you love," to mean something more like, "do the thing that interests you most," vs an activity I love waking up to do every single day.
Sometimes I wish I'd found my "thing" earlier, because I would be further along in my career and more aligned with my peers. But if I'd found my role immediately, I wouldn't have a well-rounded world view of how different industries interact and impact each other.
All my experimenting gave me insight into how other sectors outside the arts behave so I can anticipate and work with them more effectively than if I was coming in as exclusively an arts professional. Which, in short, makes me good at my job.
It took me a decade of experimenting, failing, and trying a lot of different things to figure out what I'm good at, love doing, where I fit best in the working world, and how to get myself there (more on that later). If you ever want proof, I'll send you my CV - it's often described as "diverse".
So if you're still experimenting, trying shit out, and are still confused, just keep trying until you find that thing that gets you EXCITED to get up and glue yourself to your laptop/desk/workshop/studio/phone/driver's seat/sports field every day. You'll walk away with a world of knowledge, life experiences, and it'll all come in handy one day - I promise.
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