Published on 12, July, 2020
It would be interesting to hear if anyone else struggles or struggled deciding upon a career path? I'm 23 and currently work some welcoming assistant job at my local National Trust. It's just as you'd expect really, very quiet and a little bit dull. Although it's 'perfect' in the sense of lovely people and not much stress.
All my other jobs have either been fast paced and intense sales jobs, working with horrid trades people and not so nice 'co-workers'. Or a path down carpentry which also stressed me out. Both of which haven't been the best for me and ultimately ended in me having burnout and or a mental breakdown in the past, hence the transition to NT, not important.
I've always struggled finding what path I want in a career and have inklings of what I'd like to do, which most of the time seems impossible to achieve. I'd really love to get into wildlife or woodland conservation / volunteer management, don't ask me how I intend to do this.
Does anyone else feel a bit lost at times and just overthink themselves into a panic? How does one get around this? Anyone I seem to ask (Such as career advisors) just act as if I'm odd and brush me off, it's quite frustrating.
Thank you
I've never had a career path, I had a career tangent and I think lifes been all the more interesting because of it. Maybe its my age, but I often ask why do we have to choose a career instead of having a job? You sound like the job you're in now suits you, do you need to fix something thats not broken? Do you want to work to live or live to work? It's an important distiction, working to live means more balance and having time to devote to things other than work, living to work, mean giving yourself up to your work, is that what you want?
Does the National Trust have any internal courses that you could do? Is there an HR or career development office you could contact?
There are argricultural colleges that do woodland management courses, it might be worth doing a quick online search to see whats out there.
It annoys me that career advisors are so short sighted when it comes to things like this, all they seem to care about is office based stuff.