When it’s time to cull, keep the pigeons, lose the hole.

These are tricky times. Many employees are currently facing an uncertain future and redundancies are unfortunately the order of the day. Myself and a great number of my colleagues are experiencing this first hand and we’ll either have to reapply for our jobs, apply for new ones, or leave the company. For some, this is the end of their world, for others it presents the chance they’ve been waiting for to break away and start afresh.

Role playing

The one thing this has brought to my attention is how quickly we all get pigeon-holed. We often assume that the role someone performs is the only thing they are capable of doing. We know Andy’s in e-commerce, Kirsty’s a merchandiser and Annette’s a graphic designer. What we don’t realise (if we don’t bother to find out) is that Andy’s a very creative and budding novelist, Kirsty’s got the talent to make a great copywriter and Annette would be equally at home directing photo shoots.

On a personal note, in my time I’ve been a language student, a gardener, a garden designer, a barista, a barman, a teacher, a translator, a proofreader, a voice-over artist, even a singer and actor. Now I’m plying my trade as a copywriter and thankfully enjoy what I do. Yet when I recently became involved as an art director at photo shoots, it’s amazing how many eyebrows were raised by colleagues. What? A copywriter at a photo shoot – shouldn’t he be writing copy? Whether this becomes another string to the bow or just an interesting side, only time will tell. But for those of us facing uncertain times, it’s important we don’t let ourselves be pigeon-holed.

Now I’m thinking about it, I think this problem starts at an early age. One of the most difficult questions I was asked at school was: what do you want to be when you grow up? I really had no idea. In fact, how many of us actually do at such a young age? Come to think of it, how many of us know what we want to be now we are grown up!? Maybe the question is wrong. Do we actually need to be anything? Surely, it’s more important to be someone? Instead of just asking our children ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’, shouldn’t we also be asking ‘who do you want to be?’.

The person we become can fulfil many different roles in life and there should be no limitations. We become leaders, educators, role-models, fathers, mothers and children to be proud of. Isn’t that more important? We concentrate so much on finding our money-earning role that we often forget the other important roles we play.

Step by step, connecting the dots

We all have to start somewhere and having the flexibility to make the ‘wrong’ decision should be more important than having to make the ‘right’ one. There’s often such a fear of making the ‘wrong’ decision at an early age that it’s easier to make no decision. It’s no wonder that so many people get stuck in life, left wondering what they should be doing and feeling that they are failures as they haven’t yet found their ‘perfect’ job. We can’t escape the importance of being able to earn enough to support the lifestyle we choose but not all of us will get that straight away. We should concentrate on choosing our steps carefully and should trust the decisions we make, while still keeping an eye on the future ones. And even when it’s sometimes hard to see whether the steps are right or wrong, with hindsight they’re likely to make sense. It’s about trusting in your gut instinct, not being controlled by your (or others’) fears.

I’ve found that however unusual the steps in my life have at times seemed, they always felt right at the time and always proved right in the end. They were simply steps to the next stage in my life and the next steps I had to take. For example, I gave up an office job to be a gardener as I couldn’t face being boxed in at such a young age (that hasn’t changed); I gave up gardening to work in a bar as I needed more social contact; I quit the bar as I needed more mental stimulation; I then became a language trainer where I had both. This then led me to move abroad, use the languages I had originally learnt at university (even though back then I had no idea why I was actually studying them apart from enjoying what I was doing), and enter the world of proofreading, translating and a few years ago, copywriting.

I never really knew much about Steve jobs until a few months before his death. I came across his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address and was reassured and further inspired by his words. I strongly recommend you take the time to watch his Stanford address and read the transcript too.

As Steve himself says:

…you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

An open commitment

I think if we concentrate less on looking for the perfect job, but rather commit ourselves 100% to each step and let it take us a far as it can, then the answers will reveal themselves over time. We just need to be patient and remain open to finding them. The more open we are, the more chance we have of discovering our rewards.

And whether it’s looking at ourselves or assessing our colleagues, let’s stop being blinded by suffocating stereotypes, restrictive titles and fears of failure. Instead let’s keep our eyes and minds open and allow ourselves to recognise individual talent and everyone’s potential for success, however it should be defined.

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