What is my career plan? Simply put, I don’t have one and I never have. My career plan looks like the tumbleweed in this image whenever I think of what it is or might be or has ever been. I’m just not wired in the way of being on a clear career trajectory, I’ve always followed what interests or excites me.
I remember being in the running for a job years ago, when the recruitment agent said to me that my CV was ‘eclectic’, and had caused her to pause for a moment when looking at my choices of jobs. It had made me laugh to myself because, no, I hadn’t followed a traditional mapped-out career trajectory at all. I wasn’t on the well-trodden path followed by people to be, for example, a Local Authority Chief Executive because in all honesty, I couldn’t think of a job I would want less. I’d tried that for a little while, and it just wasn’t me. I have friends who have made conscious choices to follow that path, who are doing really well, and who will undoubtedly make a great CEO. Whether they will be truly happy doing it is another question, but I have no doubt they will absolutely achieve their goals. But I haven’t ever thought to myself…’right, in two years I need to be doing this, in four years I need to be doing that, I need to be a part of this taskforce or group, I need to join this networking group or that special interest group in order for me to be where I want to be in 10 years time’. It’s too rigid for me, it doesn’t take into consideration for me all the amazing and wonderful opportunities that might crop up during that time.
I was reflecting on this kind of thought process the other day. I was beating myself up because I hadn’t followed that type of path, because I didn’t have that plan laid out before me. I also beat myself up quite regularly because I am not super efficient, I am not super organised, and I am not one of those people who has everything meticulously planned so things like trips to the opticians happen at the exact point they should. No, I am very much a fly by the seat of my pants kind of person. And I have always been so. The reason I was reflecting on this was because, during a meditation, I got the very strong message to love myself more. That a lot of my ‘issues’, if you like, would not be ‘issues’ if I just did some radical self-acceptance and worked on increasing my own self-esteem. Basically, that I accepted and loved who I am rather than trying to do the almost continuous (and impossible) task I do of fitting a square peg into a round hole.
I know a lot of people who are ultra-organised, ultra-efficient, and ultra-focused. My mother is one of them, so I was raised with a set of expectations that I would be the same. I always had ambition, I always had drive but that was mostly focused on my academic achievements. I knew I wanted to study for a degree, then when I did that I knew I wanted to study for a masters. When I’d achieved both those things, I didn’t have a plan other than to get a job. I had no idea what sort of job (I knew I didn’t want to go back into the City and the money markets), nor what my ultimate goal was because I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Well, that’s not strictly true. I did have ambitions of going into journalism but I did some intern work for the BBC and other media outlets and realised that it wasn’t entirely what I thought it was. Actually, it was nothing like I thought it was and I didn’t want to end up in the same predicament I had while working in the City – utterly and completely hating the choices I had made but unable to get out of them. I had gotten the very strong sense that it simply wasn’t for me, so I hadn’t pursued it.
The driving force for me after my masters was the need to earn money, and I was fortunate enough to land a job with English Heritage that I adored because it combined all the things I was good at. The pay, though, was rubbish and I ended up having to take the difficult decision to move on. I had no idea what a career trajectory in English Heritage, or heritage generally, looked like for me I just knew that I loved it, and was good at it. As a result of opportunities I took, a secondment to the North East of England, I fell into economic development. Specifically at that point, how to utilise culture to grow economies. I loved it because I have a natural talent when it comes to economics, but more than that I have a natural talent when it comes to storytelling which I found was the answer to funding bids. Tell the story and get it to match the criteria. I have secured literally hundreds of millions of pounds in funding for projects during my career through that talent. I build the vision, create the project, get the money and then hand it over to one of those uber-efficient, uber-organised, uber-focused people to deliver the nitty gritty and do the project management side that I can’t bear. And, frankly, I am not suited to doing. So, for a long time I rose through the ranks doing just that. Working on strategies and visions for local areas or business sectors to improve the economy and bring in the funding to deliver the projects. I was good at it but I was completely unfulfilled.
I have flirted with the idea of having the mapped-out career trajectory. I have applied for jobs because it was expected of me, but I think my soul-deep reluctance to do them eventually shines through. And those organisations were absolutely right not to appoint me, I would either have left sooner than they would have wanted or just not been as good as they would have wanted. I am at my best when I am dreaming up a vision, when I can see the direction a place can take, and when I am bringing people along on the ride for that vision, but that’s about it. And I know those things are important, but so is the substance behind all of that and I just was not interested enough in the subject matter to dive deeply enough into it to get that substance. I was shallow in my career in that respect. I was never committed or interested enough, because if I had been I would have mapped out that career path.
As I say, I have come to the understanding of myself that I am a fly by the seat of my pants kind of person, that I am better flitting in and flitting out, helping people to establish their own vision of what they want, guiding them through that process, then leaving. So, consultancy would possibly have been a good career for me, though I can’t bear the politics I saw go on in the large consultancy firms which, again, require you to have a defined career trajectory in order to succeed.
While I am hard-wired to succeed in whatever it is I do, that unfortunately does not always translate into the things I am most passionate about. There, I come up against crippling self-esteem issues. I have regularly flirted with the idea of coaching, I am fully trained in it and I do thoroughly enjoy it alongside my writing. But, I lack the self-belief to really push myself forward. And I don’t know why because I have helped people make significant, positive, changes in their lives and businesses as a result of coaching with me. Working on this is part of that radical self-acceptance of who I truly am.
I know I have very strong leadership skills, I know I am deeply spiritual and have a good way of explaining spiritual matters to people, I know I am a good storyteller, and I know I am a strong coach. I have considered wrapping all these things up into my writing, creating coaching books alongside the fiction I write. But in many ways, while that is helpful for people, it is also a way of me hiding. Writing a coaching book is definitely something I will do, but it is a way of me helping people without truly putting myself forward, putting myself out there. For my writing, I have identified some kind of career path for publishing, and where I want to get to from the fiction side. I also have some ideas about the non-fiction side. Again, the path does require me to put myself forward and bring what I love to do out into the light. And that is, again, where the self-esteem comes in, where I falter. Where the question ‘who, me?’ comes into play in my mind and where I lack the self-esteem to respond with, ‘yes, me’.
I have spent so long trying to meet the expectations of others and be what I am not that it has worn down my self-esteem. Because I have, essentially, failed in that. Though I don’t see it as failure so much anymore, I am starting to see it as success because I have allowed the true me to come forward, for me to really see who that is, and to not hide it from those closest to me despite the judgement it has brought. I am starting to see that I am not the kind of person who wants to see life through a set of rules and expectations laid down by others and that, for me, doing so means I limit myself and make myself small (that ‘who, me?’ question). I have realised that not only can I think outside the box, I want to think outside the box, I want to be outside the box. That I don’t want to do what is expected, I want to be able to colour outside the lines and see what happens. That I don’t want to live unconsciously but be fully conscious so that I can see the wonderful kaleidoscope that is the world in all its abundant glory and opportunities. There is so much we don’t see because our subconscious mind through our Reticular Activating System closes it off, and I want to see it. I want to see magic and miracles as part of everyday life. I want to see everything this world and this life has to offer, rather than be told what it is or what I can have.
This is in no way judging anyone who follows a set career path. That’s their prerogative, and potentially their purpose. Equally, I am not judging those uber-organised, uber-efficient, uber-focused people. No, I am and will always be in awe of them. I know I need them in my life to keep me in some form of check, otherwise I can go off on a complete tangent. No, this isn’t about judgement of anyone else it is just about the discovery of me. I firmly believe this world needs all the different types of people in it in order to function, and we should let them be who they are rather than trying to get them to conform to the idea of what is ‘right’.
Writing this has been one of the most cathartic things I have done in a long time. Actually, writing this blog is insanely cathartic for me generally because the amount of insights into myself it creates is amazing. I often think, it doesn’t matter if no one ever reads this because it has helped me enormously.
I do hope, though, for anyone who does read this and who is perhaps feeling like a square peg in a round hole, it gives them some help and encouragement too.
Louisa Simpson 