WRITTEN BY AUDREY TEO

Pre-Event Poll Results — 184 Respondents

I had the opportunity to attend a 2-day Zoom conference on the 17th and 18th of October 2020 titled, “Coming to Terms with My 100-Year Life”. As a current University student, I wasn’t sure if this workshop centering around career transitions and 100-Year Life would be applicable to me, but I did gather valuable insights and tips that I am excited to share with you!

The thought that I could live till 100 years old never crossed my mind until this conference. I wondered to myself, so what if I lived longer? Is it something to be excited about or something to dread? I may be excited because I would have more time to try new things and to grow. On the other hand, I may feel dread because the idea of living so long on earth can be depressing, we may even run out of things to do.

Well, an insight I got from the conference was the realisation that a 100-year life gives me more time to recalibrate, to make short-term investments for the rest of my life (e.g. taking gap years). As mentioned in the workshop, ideally, we should be students and interns all our lives!

I personally am still lost about what I want to do as a career. I switched from Social Work to English Language major at University. I recall being inundated by too many other options including Communications & New Media, Music, Psychology, etc. As a result, I often found myself in a state of ‘choice paralysis’ – being paralysed by indecision due to the many choices available. No course really stood out to me after secondary school, so I ended up taking the safe path of Junior College and then University.

My parents would always tell me,

“Audrey, most people don’t end up doing what they studied in University.”

Indeed, our lives are going to be full of transitions. What a relief! A relief because there is no pressure to figure it all out or to stick to our initial career plans. How then do we approach these career indecisions and transitions? Here are 4 tips I've gathered across the two days that I found useful and personally intriguing:

Tip 1: Get a 3rd Person Perspective of You

During one of the workshops, we were made to text 3 other friends (well, I only texted 2), asking them to identify my top 3 strengths. I remember waiting anxiously for their reply. How would you describe yourself? I learned that it is never fully what you think of yourself or what others think. It was interesting seeing if what other people thought of me matched with what I thought of myself. When I got their replies, they pointed out things about me that I never thought of before.

Through the breakup room discussions, it was apparent that most of us found it easier to list our weaknesses rather than our strengths. When we reflected on our strengths, I noticed that we did so by recalling what others have pointed out before.

Sometimes I feel so alone, having to rely on my own judgement when crafting my resume or searching for a job, sometimes I even feel like I am being fake on my resume. What I learned during the Personal Brand workshop is that it is not about pretending but about amplifying who I am, projecting my real self! Getting a third person point of view can ensure you are viewing yourself in a balanced manner -- not too self-deprecating or overly self-elevating.

I hope this simple activity may prove valuable for you as well (try it out!) to give you a little boost as you craft your own personal brand -- realise which strengths you can tap on for your future career.

Tip 2: Remove the Condition of Having to “Love What I Do”

Something that intrigued me during the workshop was the quote, "Love what you do and you never have to work a single day". It was insightful realising that this quote might fashion a low-quality work mindset in place of hard work, dedication, and expertise. I never thought of it that way. The speaker went on to say that we should instead, "Find work that we will keep on doing".

This makes a lot of sense. Personally, I have struggled with deciding whether to turn what I love into a career – e.g. singing or art & crafts. Removing the condition of “love what I do” or the expectation that “I’ll never have to work a day” is much more realistic. I mean let us get real, how many of us end up doing a course or job we really love doing? After much reflection, I realised that my goal was not to find work I love but to find work that I can keep doing while holding on to the things I really love as hobbies (to balance out the stress of work).

*How then do we find work that we will keep on doing?*

Meaning can be an important source of motivation to keep doing a job. Louis, one of the workshop facilitators, talked about finding our own meanings for doing a job (one that we resonate with), not a meaning that someone else or society has placed on us.

He gave us an example of people who wanted to find meaning in terms of fighting for justice. An obvious job is none other than a lawyer, but there are actually other jobs where you can fight for justice such as direct job roles where you alleviate inequalities (e.g. Social worker) or any indirect but related job role (e.g. Researcher).

During the breakup room discussion, someone elaborated on this concept of Job Crafting – meaning that wherever you are in a job, you can create your own meaning.

She gave an example of this cleaner at a hospital whose job was to maintain a sanitary environment. The amazing meaning that she drew from her job was to be an “Angel” at the hospital – she decided to take the opportunity to talk to dying patients.

Wow! It was so insightful to think about meanings in jobs that were less obvious yet still completely valid.

Through the breakup room discussions, we also saw the importance of articulating our thoughts -- our best guesses regarding our potential career paths. It was evident that articulation did help us gain clarity. I appreciated the many questions and conversations with people of varying age, personalities, and career paths.

Tip 3: Altering Behaviours Instead of Attitudes

“Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviours”. As a result, a person would try to reduce this dissonance by altering one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviours (Source)

For instance, someone who has been working in an industry for so long (behaviour) but hates his or her job (cognitive/attitude). One might attempt to change his or her attitude by thinking, “I have been in this industry for so long, it is too crazy to make a career switch now”. But what if we altered our behaviour instead? Put aside such a fixed mindset and embrace change?

I was excited to learn the proper term for this discomfort I felt. I experienced this when I was so set on doing Social Work. I felt discomfort when I realised I couldn't see myself doing it as a career, yet I continued the course because it felt too crazy to make a switch. Eventually, I did make the decision to switch my major and I am so glad I did!

Tip 4: Start Building Financial Self-Awareness

What about financing our transitions?

I don’t know about you, but I have always had the “I can always do it later” mindset and never got round to learning more about financial management or putting much thought into saving. Personally, I find it stressful -- I am already stressed out enough at school and managing my social life.

Fortunately, through this series of webinars, I was better equipped with basic financial advice and approaches such as: looking out for the actual probability of returns of investment products – not to be fooled by low cost products and to consider the value as well; and the rule of 72 which enables you to calculate the approximate number of years it will take to double my money. Also, it was shocking to learn how long it could take me to double my savings if I saved only 10% annually as compared to 50% annually:

If you save 50% -- it will take 20 years
If you save 10% -- it will take 100 years

After the workshop, I asked the speaker how young adults like me, who are still studying, can go about investing. He emphasized the importance of knowing what my objective is first, to ask myself if there is a financial objective worth pursuing now. He proposed that I could always start with an objective to learn and understand more about financial management and products. He added that age should not be the factor in deciding when to start saving or learning.

Linking back to Day 1 workshops, I learned the importance of finding careers in which we can thrive, hence contributing to our laboured wealth. It is still going to be our main source of total wealth so we should not get too caught up in looking for products that can enable massive returns especially in times of recession.

Final Thoughts

I guess the key takeaway for me was a changed perspective towards my future career, and learning that our lives are going to be full of transitions. This series of workshops and webinars pushed me to start thinking more about my future. It reframed my approach towards transitioning and embracing the future of work in a really organized, bite-sized manner. All in all, I felt prompted to rediscover myself and to view 'adulting' in a less daunting way, seeing that there are so many frameworks, tools, and resources available.

Career Indecision: What to Do About It