What Do I Want To Be When I’m Older?

That age old question. One that I consistently ask myself on a daily basis.

Truthfully, I thought I would have had it figured out by now.

I’ve graduated, got the degree and have been working for two years since in the industry that I enjoy.

But is this what I want to do forever? I’m not sure. Is this what I will be doing forever? Absolutely not.

Does anyone know what they want to do forever?

The reason I can say without hesitation that I won’t be working in influencer marketing forever is because this industry didn’t even exist ten years ago.

So what is to say that it will still be in existence ten years from today?

A lot of us are working in jobs that simply didn’t exist three, five, seven years ago and in the next three, five, or seven years, there will be more jobs that don’t exist even today.

So of course there will be new industries, new roles and new careers to pursue, so I can only imagine that my career path will alter and change a lot over the next 40 or so years, if I’m lucky to make it that far.

Should you follow your passion?

I read a book last year called So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport. The title is one of my favourite quotes by actor Steve Martin. It always makes me think that it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’ve come from or your background, but if you’re so good at what you do, they simply can’t ignore your talent.

However, the book mostly discussed whether we should mix our passions and our work life. If you love music, should you work in the music industry? Naturally this sounds like the perfect combination and they do say, ‘Love your job and you’ll never work a day in your life,’ but this could also have the opposite effect and you could end up not enjoying your job and therefore not wanting to listen to/play music in your free time.

Then what are you left with as your escapism if you don’t have your favourite thing to turn to?

For me, if I had to think about what I truly loved and would love to do as a job as well, it would probably be working in the music industry and going to gigs/events and basically being on tour with a band.

However I can imagine that being on the road and having late nights all of the time would get to be a bit much and maybe it would put me off my love of concerts and gigs. But I will say that it is my dream so surely I’d love it, right?

To learn is to live

How do we know what we want to spend the rest of our lives doing if we only try one thing and stick with it. You might think you want to be a civil engineer or an accountant for the rest of your life but what if you love animals and could become the best vet in your local town? What if you like to cook and could become a Michelin star chef?

How do we know what we want to be when we most often pick one industry and stick to it for the rest of our lives?

How do we know what we want to do for the rest of our lives at 18 years of age, then spend £50,000 to have a degree in that field and so see it as a waste if we feel like changing paths a few years after graduating.

For me, it feels frowned upon if I was to follow a career in PR for five years and then all of a sudden at the age of 27 (for example) want to switch to working in the music industry. Plus, I’d more than likely have to start at the bottom and work my way up, which is another factor that deters people from switching careers into something they actually want to do.

Thankfully I’m only 24 and may find a switch in career easier at this point in my life, but also I feel like I should be running the world by now. It’s hard.

As an example, I torture my boyfriend on the daily with new roles I’d like to try out. Over the past year or so, I’ve added the below to my list of ‘things I want to be when I’m older’:

• A published author
• The best influencer marketer in the world (lol)
• The owner of a bookshop
• A career and guidance counsellor to students
• The younger version of Ariana Huffington with my blog
• My own boss
• The owner of a cosy coffee shop where people can come to read
• A music publicist who is able to attend concerts for free forever
• The owner of the world’s best brunch cafe (I already have the tasting experience)
• A book publicist or influencer marketer in the publishing industry
• Work for Cosmo (this has been on my bucket list forever)

As you can see, there are many things I would like to do and be in this lifetime – some attainable, others definitely not.

Who knows what life has in store for any of us and what my future career path will look like. All I know right now is that I love what I do working in influencer marketing and working with students and for right now, I’ll stick to that.