Flashback to five years ago. A young, impressionable, seventeen-year-old version of myself sat in her career counsellor’s office, ready to make a decision on what her career should look like.
This same version of myself was yet to have a legal sip of alcohol, hold her license, kiss a boy or work more than three hours a week at Kmart.
This version of myself was also on the brink of burnout from the pressure she put on herself during high school.
But, somehow, this same immature version of myself, was the one that was expected to decide the career I would see myself in for the predicted future.
I was a high achiever in primary and high school. I worked hard and did the right thing, while also putting insurmountable amounts of pressure on myself to succeed.
This pressure I put on myself was unwarranted and wildly unsustainable. By about year nine, I was crippled with anxiety, and was being granted special considerations and conditions to take my assessments and exams.
I think about myself at fourteen/ fifteen and I just want to give her a big hug and tell her to slow down and R E L A X.
The formula to success seemed pretty binary to me at that point in time:
Study hard
Earn a good ATAR
Be accepted into a great course,
Find a job and live happily ever after etc.
In defence of my younger self, this was definitely a formula drilled into my mind from external sources.
I worked hard for the rest of high school, but my burnout was evident by the pointy end of year twelve. I still earned a pretty decent ATAR, and I made it into my chosen course in the first round of intake.
Fast forward to present day.
I completed my Professional Communication degree in 2018, but my main source of income currently is working in retail at Bras N Things.
This hasn’t been by necessity or default, purely by my choice and decision making.
I started at Bras N Things as a part time side hustle to help me through uni and fund my binge drinking on the weekends. But, as uni started to fade out of the picture, I felt like my time in retail wasn’t done yet.
I really liked the person I was at this job. I felt valued, I related to the company’s ethos and morals, and I was earning more money than I ever had before.
Fortuitously, I was offered a promotion around the same time as graduation, so I made the decision to stay on full time instead of leaving to find a job I was newly “qualified” for.
This was met with a lot of resistance (perceived and actual) from many adults in my life.
It seemed I was being viewed as taking the “easy” route, nevermind the fact I was working full time as a manager, on the back completing a tertiary degree, all at the ripe old age of 21.
I felt no rush to get into the journalism industry. On top of that I felt no desire to enter it. The truth was, even after dedicating three years of my life to studying it, I still wasn’t sure how or where I fit into it.
Something that many people don’t talk about is the sense of identity that comes with the job you hold.
When you meet a new person, or see someone for the first time in a while, the first question that is usually asked is “What do you do?”.
When this situation would happen for me, I loved to be able to boast about something. For a long time I fed off praise like it was a lifeline, like I wouldn’t know who I was if I wasn’t doing well and achieving something.
My identity for a long time was the high achiever. Even though I still felt like I was honouring myself with my decisions and still reaching good heights in my chosen industry, it killed me that not everyone around me was thinking the same.
I have noticed in the people that the sense of identity we gain from our careers, holds a direct line to our levels of self worth and self esteem.
When the virus took hold a few months ago, and many people, including myself, found themselves out of work, I believe many of us felt a loss in their sense of person.
I was abruptly forced to find out who I really was outside of work, and it was certainly confronting to say the least.
Gone was the reassurance I felt everyday that I was doing a good job at work. Gone was the usual paycheck I was accustomed too. Ultimately, gone was the identity I had worked so hard to protect.
Ironically, this rude awakening was the best thing that could have happened for me. It allowed me to investigate other parts of myself, and really learn who I was outside of work.
The global crisis we are facing is also giving us a chance to shake ingrained collective ideas, and the opportunity to find what is really important to us at our core.
I challenge you to look inside yourself, and find what it is that makes you, you. Start listening to your intuition, and let it guide you.
I really wish seventeen-year-old Ellie had been taught to go with her gut. If we are trusting kids at that age to make these HUGE life choices, we should also be able to trust what their intuition has to say.
I truly believe everything happens for a reason. If I had found an entry level journalism job straight out of uni, I most likely wouldn’t have the job security I have now during the current pandemic.
I think it is time we start trusting ourselves a little more, and in that same vein, trusting that others know what is best for themselves.
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