"What will I be?"

By Gill England, Practice Advisor with Careers New Zealand

Those older Gen X-ers reading this will totally remember Doris Day trilling through their childhoods:

When I was just a little girl

I asked my mother: What will I be

Will I be pretty?  Will I be rich?

Here’s what she said to me:

Che sera sera.  Whatever will be

The future’s not ours to see

Che sera sera

OK so 60’s housewife sentiments aside, I kinda get the notion of Che Sera Sera at the moment.  We expend a lot of energy longing for things to be “better” in our lives and wondering what is going to happen next.  We long for things, attainment, success, romance. 

It’s funny how there can be synchronicity between a number of things you observe in one weekend .  I noticed in Megan Nicole Reed's column in this week’s Sunday Times this existential cat:

And the other night I caught the first hour of Eat Pray Love, before turning the TV off in irritation. 

What the hell was wrong with the woman? O for heaven’s sake, go to Italy then to the Ashram in India to find yourself, you silly self-obsessed  middle class trout!  Let me know when you get around to making a difference in the world…..

Ahhh , that feels better! I know, I know, I didn’t see the end of the movie.  She probably adopted a little Ethiopian kid or something.  My point exactly?  Well, that longing, and, yes, I’m going to speak careers-advice heresy here, following your dreams, is a crock. 

How about instead of “what will I do when I grow up/get it together/meet Mr Right/my ship comes in” just say out loud “I’m doing it right at the moment” .  Even if it’s not entirely true.  It will be partly true.  It’s called gratitude, or as Granny said, counting your blessings.

Write down the things that you are grateful for.  So you’re shaped like an apple, but you have great legs.  So your job only pays the minimum wage, but your colleagues are awesome, and you are making great networks.  So your kid is not an A+ student.  But he constructed a fort in the back yard.   You can’t sing a note, but you can bust some serious moves at the kindy fundraiser disco. 

While following your dreams may be the stuff of movies, I never said that envisioning how you’d like things to be and setting goals to get there was a bad idea.  There are some great tools to help you do this on the Careers NZ website.  Or you could get along to  WorksWonders first Kickstart Your Future! workshop on Saturday 16 June (registrations by Friday 8 June).

There are things that will just happen, and you can be a little bit planful and ready for those things that just happen.  Remember, life is what happens when we are making other plans.