How being super Gen-Y helped me find what I’m great at
I know Gen-Y gets a bad rap; we have small attention spans, we impulse buy everything, we’re all self entitled dreamers, we like Kanye West. It’s a tough life being Gen-Y, we’re constantly bombarded with shiny, pretty things to play with while generations before us implore us to just ‘stick with it and endure the humbling ascent to the top for once’.
This traditional conservative view, also known as your parents, expects you to find something you’re (passable) good at, do some study around it, get a job, start at the bottom then prepare for the steady incline to the top. And have those 2.5 kids and a tarago along the way. Easy.
Nope. On paper, I am a failure to this traditional conservative view. I’m unmarried, I enjoy immediacy, I freelance, my ovaries continue to go unused like a PC in a creative agency and I’ve probably switched careers/interests/avenues at least once every two years.
And look, I’m not saying this is the same deal for all Gen-Y’s or even millennials for that matter. And, obviously that’s because this is all about me guys, me me me, so put down Snapchat and pay attention.
See, being all Gen-Y and perpetually stubborn and all, I wanted to find something I was GREAT at because entitlement and ADHD and true happiness etc. For me it wasn’t as simple as choosing, constructing, achieving. Life’s just not that simple for Gen-Y’s. You don’t just acquire all the pieces and one day assemble me together into a fully functioning winner. I’m not an ikea set guys, though I am probably just as hard to work out.
We’ve been conditioned for a world that tells us to ‘pursue our dreams and do what we love so we never work another day in our life blah blah’ but then told our perseverance is frivolous and our choices irresponsible. It is a rather uncomfortable limbo to find yourself in.
I was told I was a good writer at 12 with a particular fondness for arguing. So naturally, I absorbed this and my destiny was set, I was to be a writer or journalist or something with the words. I did all the English, did a BA in Comms at UTS (and hated almost every minute of it), filed away countless hours at internships and wrote for free. In my time between finishing school and getting my first job I dabbled in music journalism, sports journalism, travel writing, fashion and lifestyle blogging, business journalism, Public relations, radio, trained to become a professional swim coach, the list goes on. Many things I started and was decent at but never really loved. None of them made me wake up in the morning ecstatic to get to work and I was always sure there was something out there that would.
I’ve only recently worked out what I’m great at. And, I only figured it out because of all my career hopping, from industry to industry, much to my mother’s detest. When I got my first job as a drinks writer I didn’t care too much for the trade speak, what I loved was meeting the people and telling their stories in a charismatic and relatable fashion. When I moved on from there (because I was bored) I was placed in several different editorial roles, in different industries, and always migrated towards focusing on people even if it wasn’t about that. It wasn’t until I accepted a role as editor for women’s entrepreneur organisation, Rare Birds, and was tasked with interviewing 50 female entrepreneurs and telling their stories that I actually realised “sure I was good at writing, but it was the people I was great with”.
When I say great with people, I don’t mean it in a salesy way, I’m not that happy girl at the boutique that’s all smiles and denim cutoffs and looks like she bathes in rainbows. No, I mean I’m perceptive of people, I can understand people in relation to context. I have always had this skill; a knowledge of the environment surrounding people as well as a sensitivity to what works and what doesn’t when associating with them. I just didn’t really know it yet.
Now, I purely focus my content on people, as both a copywriter and owner of meetthepeople.co. In the last year, across the globe, we’ve seen branded content explode with people centric blog series and storytelling campaigns and I’ve been lucky enough to work with several iconic brands on this type of content. In my eyes, the social currency surrounding people is just in its infancy.
But, let’s cut back to being criticised for ‘not sticking to one job for 15 years’ shall we.
In his Ted Talk, psychologist Adam Grant explains that potentially the greatest originals are the ones who fail the most because they’re the ones who try the most. If I had never had the courage to try different things and the confidence to block out the naysayers, I’m not sure I would have found what it is I’m truly ‘great’ at.
So, maybe being Gen-Y is not about being flippant or impulsive or entitled, but more so about searching, trying and closing the door on things that don’t work until you find the one that does.
Or maybe not, maybe check back in a year or so and see where I’m at…
