There are no ‘right’ answers, just the choices you make

Trying to make decisions about your future at the start of your life is hard.

I know some people have a sudden insight that they want to be a doctor or athlete or underwriter, but most of us aren’t that clear. How can we be? Even with the internet we are only aware of a small subset of all the possible jobs and careers out there in the world, and what else may become possible during our lifetimes. And we change as we get older.

And yet we are regularly asked what subjects we want to study as if it’s coded into us somewhere. Of course we get ‘advice’ – from parents, teachers, friends, influencers, celebrities. But mostly that adds to the confusion rather than helping.

So mostly we are guessing. Informed guesses, but we are guessing. Let me explain how my guessing went, and what I’ve learned.

Messy Beginnings

I went to a very traditional boys grammar school. I did OK, but was never stellar. At 16 I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I guessed, and stayed on for A levels. I wanted to do Maths, English and Design, but I was told you can’t mix Arts and Sciences, and Design wasn’t academic enough. So, instead of looking for a school where I could do my subjects, I stayed and chose Pure Maths, Applied Maths and Physics…

Bad guess. It was awful. I lasted a year and I had to leave. I didn’t want to go to university, didn’t want to join the forces, so the school told me to head for the job centre. They took my favourite subjects and suggested I trained to be an architect. They were probably right, but telling a 17 year old who is fed up with school to spend (then) 7 years training to be an architect didn’t land well. I had no idea what to do when a friend of the family mentioned that the biggest employer in the area, Ford, did an apprenticeship. I had no idea what that meant, but I liked the idea of being paid, and didn’t mind more studying if I knew it would have practical application – something I always found missing at school.

When I got there I found everyone else had done metalwork at school, and spent their evenings rebuilding cars. I wasn’t an instant fit. But I knuckled down, did my best, learned a lot, got to try lots of different parts of the business and at the end of 5 years got asked by my boss what I wanted to do. I wanted to work in design, but it turned out the only job available was in certification testing. 5 years later of doing that I knew I was stuck. It was better than school, I was being paid, I had a life, but didn’t know what else to do. Then the first computers arrived in the office (yes I am that old). School hadn’t worked out as I’d hoped. Cars and trucks didn’t seem like it would either. So I went looking for jobs in computing.

It seems that although engineering hadn’t taught me anything about computers, it had taught me about problem solving, managing projects and budgets and delivering results, and that’s what got me my next three jobs in software development. I wasn’t writing code – I was helping to work out how to manage software development. But before you think I’d found my niche, you should know these three jobs happened in 4 years. I was out of Ford where I’d felt stuck, but it wasn’t working. Each time I joined, something happened, I got grumpy and left.

After the third try, even I was beginning to think I was cursed. Engineering didn’t work. This software thing didn’t. What on earth was I supposed to do? Where did I fit?

The breakthrough

I was still randomly applying for jobs (remember, still no internet) when I had a call, from a job I’d applied for 6 months before. Would I like to come in for an interview next week? I did, they liked me, and I got the job.

Turned out I’d got a job I didn’t understand – as a management consultant – with a company I’d never heard of. It’s now PwC, but back then it was called Coopers & Lybrand.

It had taken 6 months to interview me because, as they said, my CV looked weird. They’d interviewed all the more ‘normal’ candidates. None of them worked, so they went to the B list, where I was sitting. And we just clicked.

It turns out my combination of engineering, problem solving, design, creativity, project management, budget management and people skills picked up along the way didn’t qualify me for any of the previous jobs that well, but it was the perfect background for what they needed. The IT Project Management Group that I joined eventually morphed into change management, leadership development, innovation – more buzzwords than you can shake a stick at. It was a culture shock, but I loved it and I was good at it.

Looking back I could never have imagined the job or planned that path. I had no idea consulting existed, or that I’d need solid commercial experience to be any good in it. Or that I’d turn out to be good at inventing new ways to problem solve and teach it to clients and colleagues alike.

Even the team I joined was unusual. I always say I couldn’t have joined, and wouldn’t have been employed by, any other team in the firm. It was an eclectic mix of ex teachers, naval architects, engineers, IT people and more. And they are still some of the nicest and smartest people I’ve ever worked with.

Ten years at C&L/PwC gave me skills, confidence and a direction. And it wasn’t enough. That itch of working out who I was and where I fitted needed scratching again. I left and went independent as a self-employed consultant – loved the freedom, got used to the lack of a regular paycheck – but ultimately wanted back inside an organisation again. I spent 4 years doing Leadership Development at BP, 4 years doing internal change at AXA XL (insurance), and I’ve spent the last 10 years back as an independent, coaching senior leaders trying to make sense of the messy, fast-paced world we operate in.

I’m still using problem solving, creativity, project management, budgeting, change, leadership, but at way more advanced levels, and in ways I couldn’t have dreamed of at school.

Reflections

So what does that mean for making choices about your future?

• Number one for me is you can’t predict where life and your career will take you. It’s a series of guesses that you make. Some parts work out better than others, and you are always faced with the next choice and the next choice. Start with the best choice you can, and stay curious and open. And when life raises barriers, go over, under, or around, but keep moving forward.
• Make the best choices you can with the information you have available. What are the things you care about in the world? What do you get angry or excited about? To quote Steve Jobs badly, what dent would you like to make in things? At the end of the day, you are discovering yourself, not just applying for jobs. Jobs will come and go. You’ll be there all the way, and you deserve to understand yourself too. That’s not a one-off task – it lasts your whole life. I’m still doing that. I just happen to help other people to do the same now. And that definitely wasn’t on the career curriculum at school.
• My path might have sounded pretty positive. Lots of it was great. Lots of it wasn’t. Some of it was awful. That’s not the point. There is no way to predict a safe happy easy path. Make the best choices you can at any point, hope most of them work (they will) and value yourself enough to be gentle on yourself when it doesn’t work, keep going, and make a new choice.
• Apprenticeships in anything provide you with a really good grounding in life – you get to do real work, learn as you go, and get paid. And that in itself is a skill. In a world that changes as fast as it does, you will always be learning. Not with teachers giving you content to be tested on, with right and wrong answers. But learning by guessing and discovering. Discovering what is really happening. Discovering what works and what doesn’t. Discovering what you love, and who you love. Discovering joy and happiness, disappointment and heartbreak, and bouncing back, stronger and wiser. Discovering qualities in yourself you didn’t know you had. Discovering what’s possible, for you in the universe. What else would you want to do with your life?

 

Alan Arnett

Thinking Partner + Coach for busy professionals. Helping you unlock new possibilities when life gets messy.

You can find out more and connect with Alan on LinkedIn.