Career shifts, career downers
There will come a time when you feel like your career is totalled. But it's just a bump on a bumpy road of life.
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Hello friends,
Work has been insane lately, so I’ve not had time to update the blog or as I would like and write a personal letter to you guys.
It’s an exciting project, the kind I’ve dreamed of doing as a content strategist: managing an enterprise website redesign. It was the role I dreamt of when I was in Adelaide, desperate for a way to get out of my career quagmire.
Back then, I was on track to becoming a Registered Nurse in Australia. An Australian PR was an assured thing. All I had to do was enroll in an Enrolled Nursing course. I even have the application form. But I couldn’t pull the trigger.
I was unhappy where I was career-wise, and, honestly, I was mad at myself.
“Liz, people would lie, cheat, kill to be in your position. And you’re unhappy?”
But the truth of the matter was, bedside nursing was brutal on me physically, emotionally and spiritually. I hated seeing people die by inches daily. My body ached from lifting and turning people who were sometimes three times my body weight. I worried about permanently damaging my body — many nurses end up with bad backs and knees. I despaired at the mental decline some of my patients suffered. And worse, I couldn’t comprehend how a caring profession would be riddled with so much bullying. Doctors to nurses. Nurses to nurses. Nurses to patients. There were some days that left me in tears at the cruelty I saw. It definitely shattered my airy-fairy dreams about being a medical professional.
And I miss the writing world so, so much.
I was at yet another career crossroads. To keep in touch with my former profession, I joined a meet-up group about something called “content strategy”. I felt highly inadequate when I joined the meeting. I felt like an imposter among the young, bright things talking about “taxonomies” and “content audits”. But a fire was lit. The more I read about the profession, the more I realised that this was what I did when I was in the media, but with a high-tech sheen.
I wanted in.
But I couldn’t figure a way out of my situation. I’ve invested so much into this path. Money for reeducation. Heck, I left an entire country to pursue it! Could I just throw it all in the bin and start all over again? Plus, I have no money to pursue yet another reskilling attempt!
You all know what happened. I left Australia and all the hope it promised. I returned to Malaysia to face the scorn of people who didn’t understand, who judged what they thought was a foolish decision. But they didn’t see my tears as I watched elderly patients who lived in squalor and loneliness, abandoned by families who were too busy to take care of them. They didn’t see the deep depression I struggled with as I longed for my family and friends, and the regret of leaving a career I loved.
When I returned, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. I had to return to a job I knew in my heart would not give me joy, but provided stability and room to explore my next path. And when I embarked on my path to becoming a content strategist, it was littered with burnout, shattered hopes and toxicity.
But I’m glad to say that today, I am a content strategist.
I guess what I’m saying is, that there will come a time when you feel utterly hopeless about your career. That there isn’t a way out at all. All I can say is trust in the process. Believe in yourself. And keep on pushing forward. Just know that disappointments will liter your path, but your job is not to judge and condemn yourself for them but to acknowledge that it sucked, and move forward. I’m not going to ask you to smile and dance and all that positive psychology stuff. Sometimes life sucks, but there are also good things — don’t forget to enjoy them.
It’s now 10 years from that sunny day in Adelaide when I smiled nervously at those capable, fancy professionals. And I’ve come a long, long way. All because I just kept going and pushing forward. If there’s one thing I’d change, is that I should’ve been less hard on myself when things failed. Because, honestly, when I let go of things that didn’t work, a lot of times, I was able to grab something better.
What I wrote
Speaking of sucky career transitions, I wrote something for Christian Writers Downunder recently: When you have no energy to write. What I’m doing to revive my spark. In which I lament the death of my self-publishing dream … and the birth of something better? I’m still writing fiction, but I’m not going to pressure myself to earn most of my income from it anymore!
What I am reading
I’ve been on a personal finance reading binge lately. Read these:
The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins
Retire before Mom and Dad by Rob Berger
Die with Zero by Bill Perkins
All fantastic books if you want to grasp the basics of finance, but if these are too long and tedious for you to go through, I highly recommend that you download this free, short ebook If You Can: How Millienials Can Get Rich Slowly by William Berstein. Please, it’ll save you years of agony from scams, bad financial products and bad money decisions. You literally got nothing to lose reading it.
What I’m watching
I’m in love with Star Trek again! Fun fact: My writing is mostly inspired by Star Trek’s hopeful, optimistic view of the future. Although I enjoyed Picard and Discovery, both shows went down a too-bleak path that, honestly, was quite a bummer at times. The new show Strange New Worlds is a revival of Gene Roddenberry’s hopeful vision and I ( and a large swath of Trekkies) welcome it.
Have a great day and thanks for reading :)
Blog posts will recommence next week :)