English was one subject I truly loved at school. As a teenager, I would have three novels on the go at any given time. I enjoyed writing anything and everything – from letters to poetry, from short stories to scripts.
But by the end of year 12 I still had no idea what career I wanted to pursue. The women on both sides of my family were nurses. Even Florence Nightingale was in our family tree, my late grandmother told me. In fact, my mother was the only one who wasn’t a nurse.
So, when I finished school I started a nursing degree. It was a Bachelor of Science. But I quickly realised I wasn’t particularly interested in science and the sight of needles made me squeamish. Nursing clearly wasn’t for me and I dropped out in first semester.
Lesson 1: Follow your heart – don’t settle for what everyone else is doing.
I traveled around Australia for the next few years working in hospitality. It was fun, but I still hadn’t found what I was looking for. All I knew was that I was curious and full of questions.
I was 22 when I decided to travel to India and Nepal to ‘find myself’. And I did. By a lake on the roof of the world, I decided to become a writer. I wanted to inspire others by sharing the extraordinary stories of ordinary people.
Writing is such a broad profession – I had to narrow it down. What was the real job? I decided what I wanted to do was called ‘journalism’. So when I got back to Australia I wrote my first feature about an area high on the Tibetan plateau in India called Ladakh. My article was published in Nova Magazine. I was on my way.
Lesson 2: Your unique voice and perspective is your greatest asset. The truth is powerful.
I decided to go to university and study journalism. My mother has always been supportive of my choices, but I suspect the rest of my family considered it a bit of a joke. I don’t think anyone imagined I’d actually finish the degree.
I applied to go to university and was accepted. This was wonderful – except that between having my first article published and attending my first lecture I’d had a baby and was now getting a divorce. It was a challenging time to say the least. But I was determined to pursue my dream and started full-time studies in 1998.
However, I soon learned the job prospects were fairly grim. Only eight per cent of you will work as journalists, my lecturer told a room of bright young hopefuls. We all looked around wondering who that would be. The vast majority of students were about five years younger than me and weren’t single mothers. How could I compete?
I needed a back-up plan. So I decided to do both journalism and public relations. Employment in PR was growing fast, rather than shrinking, so I figured I could go between the two.
Lesson 3: Be creative. Think about how you can use your passion and skills in other areas.
I persevered for seven years of part-time study. My son was eight years old when I graduated in 2005 – with grades that placed me within the top five per cent of Murdoch University students.
Lesson 4: Those who believe they are less likely to succeed may overcompensate by working harder and can achieve surprising results.
Our lecturers encouraged us to move to small country towns to break into journalism. So I moved to Darwin the day after my graduation ceremony.
It took eight months of constant phone calls, emails and visits to the Northern Territory News to get a job interview. The job I got was as an advertising features journalist. Working 9am to 5pm, no weekend shifts. Ok, so it wasn’t reporting in the newsroom, but it was working for a metropolitan daily newspaper. And it fitted well with parenting. I worked there for the next two-and-a-half years. So, as it turns out, I was in that eight per cent.
Lesson 5: Your dream job may not look like you imagined, but it will be just right for you.
From there, I moved into public relations for Tourism NT and then into marketing, writing online content for Charles Darwin University. I did a stint in radio with ABC Darwin. I worked as the freelance senior writer for Darwin Life Magazine. Darwin was a fantastic experience but definitely the school of hard knocks for me. I made some huge mistakes and had some big falls, but I learned so much along the way.
Lesson 6: There will be people who continue to believe in you, even when you doubt yourself.
When I moved to Melbourne in 2011, I had a job to come to. I’m working as a public relations executive with Swinburne University of Technology and it’s another fantastic learning experience.
The reason why I have a successful career today is not because I’m especially talented – it’s because I’ve persevered. I’ve never given up. I may not have my name up in lights, I’ve never won a Walkley award and I still have dreams to achieve. But I have built a solid and fulfilling career as a writer. And to me, that is success. I had a dream and I chased it. And I made it. After 15 years, I’m still compelled to write. I still love it. It’s what I do and it’s all I can imagine ever doing.
This was my first guest post and was originally published on Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead. I know the publisher AJ Kulatunga (follow @BLKMGK01 or @ICT_GURU on twitter) from my time in Darwin and he asked me to share my story with his readers. Here’s the orignal post: Six lessons from the school of hard knocks
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