Deciding What To Do With Your Life

DECIDING WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE

I seem to be off on a right one with all these advice posts lately, but I guess it's because 1) I actually have the time to sit and bang them out like a lean mean writing machine, and 2) I've been in one heck of a reflective mood the last week or so, and I thought it might be nice to therefore share my experiences and reflective thoughts on my blog in the off chance that you might stumble across a post like this (and if so big hello to ya :) ) and maybe possibly find it useful in some way. Because lets face it, there are certain things and feelings that we all go through, and it's nice to help each other out wherever we can and not feel so alone. 

Today's post came about because earlier I was deciding what to do in the summer, and I randomly decided to google (I love how that's a verb now) if there were any art and design courses I could do to brush up on my existing skills. After a few minutes scrolling and searching around and thinking about art and design in general, I somehow made the jump to thinking about my life choices (welcome to the weird logistics of my ever active mind) and how far I've come in the last year or so. Obviously I then decided that it was imperative that I share my 'How I Decided What To Do With My Life' story on here, because I haven't yet and I think it might help you out if you're sat there absolutely frazzled about what the hell you're doing/ going to do with your life. So here goes....

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-Here's a pic of me looking pretty damn happy about life ;)-

HOW I DECIDED WHAT TO DO WITH MY LIFE

Up until the age of fifteen I always assumed I would pursue a career in the creative industry. This was partly because other people had also assumed this too, and also because I just loved everything about creativity in general. It was my thing, and always, always had been ever since I was a three year old girl drawing pictures of conservatories (#wildchild). Now this was okay, but also kind of scary because the creative industry is notoriously hard to get in to and if you read my previous post on feeling good enough, you'll understand me when I say I just didn't know if I had the balls or talent to do it. Combined with that, I also had the issues of:

1) Discovering my inner science nerd, who'd got lost somewhere along the way.

2) Also discovering that I was a languages nerd, which I never, ever dreamed would be a thing because I used to detest learning languages at school.
3) Realising that I wanted to do something selfless and positive with my life, as well as do something people related that involved helping make a positive difference to their lives in some way. 

4) Not knowing what one thing to pick when there were so many things I wanted to do and be.

Coming to all these realisations in my last year of school, when there was this mounting pressure to state exactly what I was going to do with life, was a bit crap. To be honest, it freaked the hell out of me, especially because I was beginning to realise that in order to figure out what I was going to do, and who I was going to be, I needed to walk away from the presumed career path and industry I knew best of all. The people around me were telling me one thing, but in my head I was thinking completely differently, my mind was constantly in a different place, and I knew I had to do something about it. I had to jump into the unknown and hope that I'd eventually land in the right place, and so jump I did. 

Now as you may know, I'm currently at the University of Manchester studying Speech & Language Therapy, a fairly large jump from my original decision to be a graphic designer. Ask fifteen year old me if this was where she thought I'd end up, and she'd have scrunched her nose, frowned her eyebrows and exclaimed "what the hell's that?", but this is where jumping into the unknown took me. When I went to college, I ended up exploring my new found academic interests, as well as my existing ones, and took Art, English Lit, Spanish and Biology A Levels. I tried to keep my options open, due to my beautifully frustrating indecisiveness. I explored my interests a bit more, pushing them further to see if they could possibly lead anywhere, I took up volunteering and started making appointments with the college careers service for some kind of guidance. The careers adviser pointed me to quizzes which were semi-useful, but being a dog carer wasn't really the career I'd had in mind, and my unique combination of interests, skills and desires meant I ended up falling off the spectrum somewhere. It seemed like I didn't belong anywhere, and that was quite possibly one of the scariest realisations and feelings I have ever come to in my life.

I think it was my mum who suggest speech and language therapy one day, and the strangest thing about it was that it seemed to tick all the boxes. It involved a bit of everything I loved and wanted to combine in my future career, including science, languages, creativity and caring for people. So although I went to university fairs and came back with literally 30+ brochures at any one time, I always had the idea of speech and language therapy in mind, and decided to begin focusing my efforts on pursuing that instead. But the funny thing is even though I'd finally found a direction for my life, I still wasn't happy. Getting to the point last August where I found out I'd gotten in to UoM was still one heck of a battle, because I was constantly worried that I'd made the wrong decision and was taking my life in the completely wrong direction. I didn't want to turn my back on the creative industry, I didn't want to give up all the things I loved, I didn't even know if I'd like or be any good at my chosen career. There was sooooo much inner conflict, and a nice mid-mid life breakdown too just to make things better, but you know what, everything worked out in the end, and in fact it's worked out better than I ever dreamed it would.

The closer I got to going to university, more and more positive signs appeared, affirming that I was actually on the right path and that everything was going to be alright, so I finally started to let myself trust life just a little bit. Things were starting to look up for me. Plus I didn't allow myself to give up all the things that made me happy, and I kept at them throughout until I had the most wonderful lightbulb moment ever. I realised that I would combine everything I wanted to do in life. I would be a chameleon of sorts, writing this blog, running my online art & design store Bluboca and maybe expanding my art & design skills further, and of course being a Speech & Language Therapist, incorporating my creative skills into my job and using them to make a real positive difference. But I wouldn't stop there. When I got to uni in September, I pushed myself even further to see what else I could do, and subsequently I've now done even more things I love, including doing my own radio show, taking up running and more volunteering opportunities, and writing my first published article for an online student magazine. And I have even more ambitions that I want to fulfil, more spinning plates I want to add in future to the balancing act I already have going, and the god honest truth is that I've never been so happy. 

When you're growing up, you're lead to believe that you can only aim for one thing in life, but I've discovered that for our generation especially, there really is absolutely nothing stopping us from being anything and everything that we want to be. The world really is our oyster, there are a million stars to shoot for, and there are so many avenues open for us to pursue. Don't waste your time being unhappy, limiting yourself, giving up what you love, when you could combine them together and do everything that makes you truly happy. Even if you have to do a job you hate to pay the bills, make sure you're still doing something you love and keep working at it, keep getting better. Once you discover all the things that make you happy, that interest you, that fuel your soul and passion, figure out how you're going to combine them all together (there's always a way!) and build up your life into something amazing, create the life you've always dreamed of. It's such a simple solution, and yet it's one we're rarely told about, so I'm here to do it for you. Since I stopped believing in limitations, and started to realise that I could add as many strings to my bow as I wanted, my life has completely changed for the better and it's wonderful. So don't worry, trust life, trust and believe in yourself, I certainly do, and as the brilliant Mark Twain once said "throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour, catch the wind in your sails and explore, dream, discover". You can do it.

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