The conflicting feelings of starting your career and achieving your goals

---

I think we can all say at some stage we have questioned our career choice, or not felt the way we thought we would after achieving a huge goal. But it’s actually a lot more common than we realise. Sometimes when it’s something that we’ve worked really hard for, and were once really excited about, it can feel confusing to suddenly question everything. This is something I have related to greatly throughout my studies so far!

I guess you could say I first recognised these feelings whilst I was at college. 18/19 year old me, trying to figure out what career I wanted after starting my health and social care studies. There was a long list of career paths I could have chosen. A few caught my eye, but the one that really sparked my curiosity was Occupational Therapy. If you ask me if I was 100% sure this was what I wanted to do as a career at the time, the answer would be no! And if I'm being honest, I didn't fully understand what occupational therapy was, all I knew was that I was intrigued, and the more I read about it, the more my interest grew. I had no idea whether it was the right thing for me, on top of having no idea whether going to university at all would be the right thing for me. But I took the leap of faith anyway.

The feelings of doubt and being unsure followed me the whole way through university. I sort of floated through first year until the placement at the end of it, that's where it really hit me that reading about a career, and doing the job are two completely different things! Despite the setback, I kept going, but every now and then, I still had the thoughts of "Am I doing the right thing, is this for me?". But the more I spoke to other people about how I felt, friends in my cohort, and friends already qualified, I realised almost everyone feels this way! Even those who have been qualified and worked in their careers/jobs for months and years. This really shocked me because most people just seem like they know what they're doing, right? Apparently not!

It took a while for me to pluck up the courage talk about my doubts because I felt like people would judge me, or feed into my feelings of doubt and encourage me to rethink my career - which ultimately was down to my own insecurities and lack of confidence. Deep down regardless of the doubts, I knew this was what I wanted and this is what pushed me to keep going. Somewhere along the line I realised how passionate I was about my career, and this massively helped me over ride the setbacks and doubts. However, even now, the day before I start my first qualified job, I still feel conflicted. I'm still questioning whether I've made the right choice sticking through my degree, I'm excited, curious, scared, intrigued, you name it, I feel it! But I've come to realise this is a perfectly natural feeling and my passion has always kept me going, even in the darkest and most conflicting moments.

Something I feel is a little bit more misunderstood; the feelings I had after finishing my degree! Although it was something I had worked so hard for, and pushed myself so hard to finish, I did not feel how I expected to when I finished it. It was really anti-climatic! Whether that was due to me never feeling fully satisfied and feeling like I can always do more, or whether it was because university literally finished on a random Thursday afternoon with no big "congratulations you made it" I do not know! I haven't had my graduation yet, so maybe I will feel differently then, but I very much just felt like "oh I've done it, great!" *shrugs*. I was expecting tears of joy and to be bursting with pride and excitement, but I just felt very "meh" about the whole thing even though it was something I once felt was out of reach. Maybe it‘s because I struggle to live in the moment, and I am always just thinking about the next thing I need to do or accomplish. I've always struggled to celebrate or see the greatness in any of my achievements, but I think it's really important for myself, and others who may feel the way I do to recognise what a huge achievement it is to finish university and celebrate the win, even if you don't feel like it's something big, because it is. It's a weird feeling, because if this was about somebody else and not me, I would be so over the moon and excited for them and would be bursting to celebrate their achievement. So why don’t I feel the same when it’s me?

The biggest take away from this post is that it is completely normal to feel conflicted and a whirlwind of emotions regarding your career and whether it is right for you, there's so many careers and interests out there. It's confusing to know which path to take. Follow you gut instinct and follow your passion. Talk to the people around you, you may be surprised how common your feelings are! Nobody really knows what their doing and most people are "winging it"!! Secondly celebrate your wins and try to live in the moment. It's OK to think about your next steps but don't forget to recognise what you are accomplishing in the present time. I feel like my head always being stuck in the future has sucked a huge amount of the excitement of my achievements out of me! Celebrate the wins, no matter how big or small they may be. Be proud of you and every achievement, it’s not easy out here!