You Don’t Need One Set Career Path
Discovering the magic in being uncertain of your future plans.
‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’
I, like many other children, used to think this question had only one answer.
The stress of choosing one set career path is not uncommon; many of us are tricked into this false belief from an early age.
Today’s education system neatly sets up this illusion. We begin school by having a palate of classroom subjects to experiment with. Then, as we grow older, our paths become evermore streamlined as we filter out subjects one after the other until we are left with one to specialise in at University or College.
Perhaps this is the most threatening stage — choosing something to specialise in for the next 3–7 years of your life can’t be an easy choice.
The one-way route carved by society creates a difficult environment to pursue something you love. This is the ultimate goal of work life.
Evolving Thoughts
Change is an integral part of human nature. And it is very plausible that you change your mind a few times about what you’d like to do as a career along the journey.
The difficulty is these points of realisation often misalign with the structural flags society timestamps. If you’re two years into a four-year undergraduate course and are having doubting thoughts, it feels a little silly to quit.
Likewise, when making the decision of what to study in the next number of years, the motives involved may well change.
The friction of diverging on to another career path is beginning to fade, however. There is an increasing number of work options that don’t require any prerequisites: starting a YouTube channel, building a brand online and self-publishing a book are just a few.
The new, emerging world of job opportunities provides hope in pursuing something you love.
Take, for instance, a skill you have learnt over the past 5 years.
Now, in today’s online world, you can convert this skill into a source of income by teaching people on sites like Udemy or Skillshare through an online course.
All you need is a relatively good microphone, a little confidence and a fair bit of patience (I know having done this myself) and you could be well on your way to making some passive income doing what you love.
Unlike academic foundations, there are no deadlines for when you make such commitments — you can start whenever you want and finish whenever you wish.
No fixed contracts. No fuss about unenrolling — it is much easier to quit your own project than quit a degree.
Variety Is the Spice Of life
There are a number of issues with fixating on one career path.
Competition is high — it is not guaranteed you will succeed in your intended profession.
We all know that luck is a factor of success. You may be incredibly skilled in something but may find that life doesn’t deal you the right hand. Being in the right location at the right time and knowing the right people can be crucial for success despite most of these often being guesswork for us.
The most sensible option then is to give yourself some backup options so that if and when things don’t go to plan, you’re equipped with spare armour to progress in your work life.
This is the best way to be prepared for if things collapse.
Back at school, I had a friend who loved maths and wanted to become a mathematician. It wasn’t until years later he noticed that being a ‘mathematician’ wasn’t a specific job role you could just apply for, and so he tweaked his thoughts.
Unfortunately, many children remain on stubborn career pathways for an extended time without realising the complications involved in real-life scenarios.
This is not to say go crush your young child’s dreams of becoming the #1 BMX rider on the planet. Rather, ensuring they don’t become obsessed with one idea without fully exploring the rest of their creative palate seems a sensible approach to take.
It’s Never Too Late
Despite the linear pathway society sets up in the earlier stages of life, it is surprisingly easy to change your mind about your career.
The percentage of older people working in the computer science industry offers an interesting perspective on this. The fact that some older people have such jobs for the technology that didn’t exist when they were a child is particularly significant.
At a conference I attended a few years back, one of the top colleagues in a company in association with Microsoft said he only got interested in computer science at the age of 40 with no prior experience.
The world is rapidly changing, and whilst this is one industry that is particularly easy to get into being self-taught, the direction of online university courses and the ever-growing expansion of information on the web create a hopeful environment for pursuing new ideas.
Changing Career in a Changing World
Things change. There are several University courses that upon starting feature outdated information by the end. The year that curricula are devised will always fall behind the latest, trending innovations.
Whilst sounding displeasing, this is a beam of hope in the context of finding a new career.
The rate at which information is evolving is staggering, with 90% of the world’s digital data being born in the last two years, as of 2018.
Such a fast rate of change can help reroute one’s career. You may have a job in the future that currently doesn’t exist or has not yet become mainstream.
When YouTube started out, nobody knew the money-making potential it possesses today.
The birth of the 21st century welcomed the birth of passive income. The direction that technology is heading enables increasing opportunities to turn ideas into reality. Whatever ambitious project ideas may spark your mind, the environment of the internet is giving a home to thousands of creative plans that would be impossible offline.
A New Hope
As the fundamental reliance on the 9–5 lifestyle starts to fade, we can experience the peace and freedom of trying out new things with the hope of transforming passions into sources of income.
There is little danger involved in trying out something new, particularly in the online world. With no contracts to sign, no costs, or people to let down, there is only something to gain.
Considering the rapid evolution of society, the question proposed at the start of the blog becomes less daunting. The realistic view is not that the question is easier to answer, rather the question is more nonsensical.
Being asked about what our future plans entail needn’t be answered; the true answer is that nobody fully knows.
But with evermore chances to rerail your intentions on to different paths, the anxiety of not having it figured out yet begins to melt.
This acceptability of uncertainty welcomes a new perspective whereby fear transforms into excitement. The world and ourselves are ever-changing, and a future of infinite possibilities lies ahead of you.
