We are all familiar with the phrase “you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your Prince”, we have seen it play out in many a fairytale and I am sure in our own romantic lives. But have you ever stopped to wonder how this might apply to your career? Each relationship teaches us something about ourselves, others, our worth and what we will stand for and what we wont. Now apply this to your career. Each role is a learning experience, a stepping stone to the next best thing that leads you to ‘the one’. I am lucky enough to have found the one but my lord did I have my share of frogs. I have had a total of 5 major relationships in my life. 3 boyfriends, 1 lover, 1 husband. I have also conveniently had 5 jobs in my life. Each has taught me a valuable lesson.
“He cheated on me with an older girl with firery red hair and boobs much bigger than mine”
Puppy Love
I had my first ‘proper’ boyfriend when I was 15. When I say ‘proper’ – I mean our relationship was held together with more than playground whispers and classroom love letters. We were together for around 9months, a long time when your 15. I lost my virginity to him. He cheated on me with an older girl with firery red hair and boobs much bigger than mine. It was never going to be forever, but it laid the ground work and put me on a journey to finding the one. I’ll never forget it and, despite being left for the next best thing, I will always have fond memories of the short time we did spend together and when I see them sharing their successes on Social Media I’ll always smile and say “he was my first”.
If it doesn’t feel right, leave.
We’ve all been there. Your bumbling along, the dates are nice, they buy you nice things, you laugh together and they are pretty fit. But your not head over heels, they don’t challenge you, they don’t ask ‘where do you want to be in 5 years time and how can I help you get there?’. Something is niggling away at you that says you need to move on. Trust me – LISTEN TO THE NIGGLE! That thing will tell you all you need to know. This is the relationship we all leave somewhat ambically knowing you had a great time, but its for the best if you want to take the next step towards finding the one. You stay in touch here and there, speak if you’re at a mutual friends party and who knows – maybe one day, years from now, you’ll finally be able to tell them why it just wasn’t working for you.
Right person, wrong time
At the time you think “This is it! I’m in love. I’ve completed tinder. Goodbye single life. Hello marriage certificate”. And who knows, maybe in another life it might have been. You might have been older, he would be more available. You would be more self assured, he wouldn’t still have his ex-wifes wedding dress in the wardrobe. But we’ve all been there right?….RIGHT? Anyway – even when you find yourself with this person you love them, you love the people you meet when your with them, they teach you something new everyday, they are able to buy you bigger and better things, they take you places you have never been, you can be honest with them and they challenge you. But there will always be something in the way of you reaching your ultimate goal. An imposing elephant in the room staring you in the face and sitting firmly between here and where you want to be. Neither of you can do anything about the elephant, so you simply have to walk away onto pastures new, knowing what you had was special and will stay with you forever.
The one we would rather forget
This a doosy. You come across a silver tongued minx, they say all the right things, their smile draws you in, they tell you what they want from life and its as if the stars have perfectly alligned in your favour. And it continues, for a little while. But soon the cracks begin to show. They don’t call you when they say they will, they make you doubt yourself and the compliments stop. You do everything you can to reach out and paper over the cracks, pretend all is well and come up with excuses “Oh he is just busy and I’m always bothering him”, “I should be less like that because it’s annoying him”, “its not him it’s me”, “I should just listen to him and do what I am told to avoid conflict”. No. None of these things are correct. This one is going to break you down, make you doubt yourself, your self-worth and how others will see you. I am here to tell you – don’t forget this one because it’s the one that teaches us the greatest lesson and leads us to…
The One
This feels different. Something about them just sings but you can’t quite put your finger on it. What makes them so different? Like a unicorn galloping out through a field of rainbows. Can this be real? They communicate in a way you can understand, they ask what you want from the relationship, they want to know about you and when the pivotal moment comes, they exceed all your expectations. We all know in our gut when ‘the one’ comes along in our personal lives and it is no different in your career.
Boomers will tell you “Don’t change jobs too often, nobody will hire you”. Well they stayed in the same job for 25+ years, never exploring how much greener the grass could be on the other side. Perhaps its also no coincidence that this generation also has the highest rate of divorce. Now, we move from job to job, relationship to relationship. Learning a valuable lesson from each which informs our choice the next time around. But we dont linger, wait until its too late or get too comfortable. In our love lives, we would never settle for less than perfect, less than we thought we deserved or someone that didn’t see our true value. But they are out there, in both a romantic and career capacity, you just have to kiss a few corporate frogs.
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