AMAA: Redefining pathways to success
Success means something different to everyone: finishing uni, starting a family or having good health, to name a few. It can be hard to work out what it means to you, especially when influencing factors shape your idea of success. Things like: societal pressure to complete milestones by a certain age, high expectations of us from teachers/family or ourselves.
The pressure can get overwhelming when you're studying for exams or finishing school/uni. There might even be times where your plans change out of the blue, a significant life event happens, or you go through a rough patch. The good news is there are ways to support yourself to get through it!
This month our "Ask Me Almost Anything" is all about sharing ways to pursue your version of success and juggle life's unexpected twists and turns. So bring all your questions because we've got two amazing guests that I'm so excited to hear from.
This time we are chatting with two Youth Ambassadors of Reach Out, introducing:
Nigel
Nigel, 25, is an Honours Graduate who studied a Bachelor of Science Advanced Global Challenges. Throughout his career he has worked in many industries from corporate, startups, retail, hospitality, scientific research institutions, to government. These opportunities have taken him from Melbourne and Sydney, to working in Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, and the Pacific Islands.
Currently he works for the Victorian Department of Health in the Mental Health and Wellbeing division. In his spare time he is a Youth Ambassador for ReachOut Australia, loves many sports, photography, and outdoor adventures. Success to him is having purpose in the work he is doing. It's not about your job title, the money you earn, or what other people think of you. He believes success is about purposeful work and happiness in doing what you love.
Jordan
My name is Jordan and I am currently studying Nursing with the goal of one day being a paramedic or working in mental health. I have worked with ReachOut as a Youth Ambassador in the past and am currently working as an Australian Youth Advocate for Mental Health in partnership with Headspace. I have two cats named Mia, and Pippa, and I love coriander. My definition of success is trying your hardest despite all the odds, and getting to the end destination regardless of how long it took or the route you wound up on to get there.
They'll be sharing their experience of navigating their career and mental health, and we'll be answering your questions! So, send them through to us using the google form below:
We'll be here chatting on the 31st of August between 7pm - 9pm. Hope to see you there!
So right out of high -school I thought I would study media. I started off doing that and found myself really struggling with my mental health (I was also working in retail and have done for around 9 years). I had several suicide attempts and ended up spending a lot of time in hospital. Eventually after a lot of ups and downs I decided I wanted to be a paramedic after witnessing something awful and thought I would start small. Sometimes it’s little steps we need to take. I knew I hadn’t studied in a few years, and my mental health was fragile. So I enrolled in a TAFE course to study nursing as this would serve as a good ease back into studying, and then I could branch off into paramedicine. Well the course was way more challenging than I expected and there were many times I thought I couldn’t do it. But I’m about to graduate in two weeks and now I am so proud that I didn’t give up. Your career path won’t always be straightforward, heck I have more study to come after this and it's not even in the same category as what I thought I would be doing after high school, but that’s ok. Especially given that you’re trying to study in a pandemic! Give yourself some credit for how hard this all is!
Believing in yourself is so important!
Congrats on never giving up! 👏
Thank you for opening up about your mental health and past @Jords_km . You are so right! Little steps lead to bigger things. I remember enrolling into TAFE and that one step was the beginning of my career in community services.
Easing into things and being honest with yourself about your capacity is so important too. You are right to be proud of yourself. You won't just be graduating with your qualification, but also resilience, courage, character and wisdom. You can't pay anyone to teach you those qualities!
That's so amazing @Jords_km! I'm so glad I joined this chat because things like this are exactly what I need to hear right now. ❤️
Good job on almost graduating!!
I'm so so pleased! Just to feel like I've let someone else know they are not alone in these feelings, and that the path is never straightforward means so much
Such an interesting question and helpful to chat about. For those of you who are stressed about life after year 12 listen in!
What surprised you about life after high school?
That your plan or thoughts on how things will go may all go out the window and that’s ok. It’s not uncommon to drift from friends and find yourself on a different page to others. I thought we would all graduate, remain best friends forever and have the best social life. For me, my friend group slowly started dissipating, people developed their own lives, started studying, dating and even moving away from where we all once lived. It can feel so isolating and scary. But it’s also a great time to get to know yourself and what you want to do with the rest of your life. I also thought life would be straight forward. I would finish year 12, go to uni, graduate and have a super fun job. Well none of my path after school was like that, it’s been hard. Really hard. I have a small friend group but those who are still there are true friends and are always there to support me, I have a great supportive boyfriend, I am nearly finished studying my course, and I’ve had a bit of a chance to travel. These are all good things. Even if the journey there was hard.
This was just my experience, yours may be totally different!
Yes! I also thought that my life would be like that but I could never have expected the way that things went. Not that I would change anything, but I felt like I had a very narrow view of success and thought that studying was the only path to success.
Me too. I thought I was a failure for not getting a degree. At the time, to me, that was the only form of success I knew
Completely relate to this! ❤️ Sometimes it's hard to let go of past expectations but the new road is often better.
1000% could not agree with this more!
and second what @Hozzles and to add to it, life doesn't have to be about "doing things".
We all deserve the freedom to simply exist and not feel like we need to perform to be valuable or successful.
Might just reply to this one... that NO ONE really knows what they're doing, even if it looks like it! It's really scary to see that all adults have their strong areas and their areas of weakness... no one is perfect at everything! It makes us human!
Also, it's such a shock to find out how unorganised things are, haha. You learn so much in high school, and have such a strict routine then it's... gone. No one telling you what to do anymore! It's scary.
Yep. I was like "But what's going on.....there's no manual......what am I doing"
Such a good way to phrase it - no one is perfect at anything. We all have strengths and weaknesses which makes us unique!
What surprised me about life after high-school was how much free time I had available to me. You have the ability to pursue what you are interested in and do what makes you happy. For me, that was studying a few more years, learning new sports (for example surfing and snowboarding!), travelling in between semesters, and gaining experience to help me in my career.
On the flip side, it is easy to relax and cruise with the extra time, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! In fact, I fully support my friends who are taking a break. Take as long as you need to find your feet and figure out what makes you happy. But as I said, there is definitely no rush and the extra time is awesome!
I also found that I had much more free time after high school. I often liked using the time to focus on my hobbies and I also squeezed in some travel.
Yes! Get excited to try new, different things that have nothing to do with your career - or everything to do with this - whatever you decide to do, it's an exciting time.
This question is great and right to the point - very interesting to see how this question is answered!
Why does success matter so much?
Striving for success is great but the road there requires flexibility - which is why this next question is so relevant.
Did you always have your current career choice in mind or did you change your mind along your journey?
No I definitely didn’t have the same career choice in mind. Straight after high school I went to University to study Media as I really wanted to be a film editor. My mental health was not going well at the time and I was struggling hugely. I took time off, always intending on coming back to finish the course and never did. I felt so lost and felt I was slipping behind everyone else, but also knew I was in a really bad headspace and things needed to change. I admitted myself to a psychiatric hospital and spent several years in and out of there. I felt so lost within my-self and was so worried because I didn’t know what I was doing. And then after I witnessed a really tragic event something clicked and I realised I really wanted to do Paramedicine. From there my goal has been working out how to get there, and I started small by enrolling into Tafe to study Nursing
I really want to acknowledge what you've shared here. Putting your mental health first is the greatest act of self-compassion. Your story is also evidence that your career will always be there waiting for you and sometimes getting life experience is what puts you on the right path
I definitely have never had my career choice in mind. I have never had the clarity like other friends knowing they wanted to become an engineer, artist, or musician.
I have always said to myself that if I don’t know what I want to do, I might as well try as many things out there as possible.
Over time I will understand what I like, what I don’t like, I’ll meet some cool people along the way, work on a bunch of different projects, and then slowly gravitate towards the areas that interest me.
I have changed my mind about my career so many times I have lost count, and I hope it continues to change. That makes me excited because I’m growing more as a person and learning more about myself.
If you want to try something, you have that option at any time to give it a go.
It sounds like approaching your career with curiosity has been such a good move for you. It's such a different approach to picking one thing and sticking at it - love it.
I love how you hope that your goals continue to change @Nigel-YA! I think it's wonderful to see your goals changing as yourself growing as a person.
I think it is being more and more common and accepted to try out different careers. I know plenty of people who changed careers or went to university later in life.
I have found that employers like the diversity in the jobs I have worked. I provide a different perspective which they find really valuable.
But that doesn't mean you need to try different careers. If you find something you enjoy and makes you happy, stick with it!
