career curveballs

Having dreams and goals is an important human skill (AI can’t dream) that allows us to identify an end point and plan a course of action to achieve it. You may have a career goal to be a lawyer, and you have already identified the subjects you need to study at school and the university you want to go to to complete your degree. That’s great.

How would you react if a random opportunity presented itself at the end of year 12 - the opportunity to work, study or travel for one year overseas. Would you take it?

Why?

Life is always full of curveballs, and this is also true in careers. Career Counsellors call this Happenstance Theory. It emphasises the importance of taking advantage of chance events as they offer new opportunists to grow and develop as people. This is how many people ‘stumble’ upon their purpose in life.

Taking advantage of chance events may mean that your career and life trajectory is not linear like the one described above. Rather it looks like a squiggly line that has no clear direction. And that can be a great thing because that squiggly line represents all the skills and experiences you gained along the way.

The next time a curveball comes your way, trying catching it and see where it leads.