What Do You Want To Be Now You’ve Grown Up?

Do you remember as a child how many times you were asked the question:

“What do you what to be when you grow up?”

It still makes me cringe.  I hated the question. I can still remember many an awkward moment when a long pause used to extend for what seemed like forever as someone politely waited for my answer. They didn’t get one.

The thing is I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I didn’t know when I was 5 years old, 10 years old, 15 years old, or 18 years old.

Although, I will admit my father did look like he was starting to break into a cold sweat as I neared the end of my first year at university, and I still couldn’t tell him what I was going to be when I left university.

I did on the other hand have a very clear vision about the dress I wanted to wear to the summer ball at the end of the academic year.

Quite simply I had no idea what I wanted to be, or what job I wanted to do, but I could tell you at length what I didn’t want to be or do.

The end of my first year at university ended with a bump as I started my summer job.  That summer I ended up working as an HR administrator, providing some maternity cover for a large corporation.

A very kind HR Manager allowed me to shadow her for a couple of days, in hindsight I learned those must have been her very best days, but that was all it took. I finally knew what I wanted to do because I had had a great summer working in HR.

There was no psychometric test, nobody checked to see if this career would play to my strengths, utilise my entire skill set, or align with my values.  I’m not sure in the early 1990’s we even knew what a value was.

So, one month later I had applied and been accepted to start my Master’s in Human Resource Management, and two years later I was offered a job with Prudential on their HR Graduate Scheme.  I loved it and was deliriously happy with my career choice. My graduate job aligned perfectly with me.

The thing is as I grew older, as I moved companies, as my HR role developed, as the priorities in my life changed, my job did not align so perfectly with me.

It had become a job that paid a salary, but it was no longer the job I loved, it was a job that I could fit into my life.

My job felt like a dress that just didn’t fit me anymore.

The old me was still deep inside me somewhere but I felt so disconnected from her, I just remember saying to my coach that I wanted to find me again.

The thing is that after I actually grew up nobody ever asked me what I wanted to be anymore, nor did they ask if I was happy in the job that I was doing.

Why don’t we all ask grown-ups:

“What do you what to be now?” or “What do you what to do next?”.

These are some of the questions I explore regularly with my clients when they feel stuck and tired of their current job.

Their job feels like a dress that doesn’t fit them anymore.  They want a new job that just like a new dress, compliments and fits them perfectly.

I specialise in working with professional, mid-career women, who are ready for their next career, ready to explore what they want to be now, and ready to discover what they want to do next, as they enter the next exciting phase of their working life.

If you have read Gratton and Scott’s The 100 Year Life, they believe it is likely we will have a variety of careers, breaks, and transitions within our lifetime as we move through different phases of our lives.

If you have reached the stage in your life that you are wondering if it’s time to create a new career for the next phase of your life, one that would fit you better and complement your life, I would love to work with you.