How I’ve overcome feeling lost in life

Its funny how life works sometimes. I look back at my teenage years and my early twenties and think “Did I do the most that I could? What did I actually achieve? Should I have done more?”.

I truly believe that life presents you with micro life altering opportunities that shape and change you, your goals and your environment around you. I always believed myself to be the ‘long term planner’. A person who has a roadmap for their life with that 1, 3, 5 year plan to what they will achieve and by when.

What I didn’t realise is that sometimes the best opportunities and life altering moments come completely unplanned and are impactful in ways I could never have even imagined.

The first 20 chapter

For the first 20 years of my life, I thought I was going to be an accountant or a diplomat and that I was going to be living in Melbourne (Australia) and be building my life with a life partner by my mid twenties. My future world I had imagined, the dreams I dreamed were so small. I did not realise how much untapped potential there was but luckily life - and I speak as if it’s some force or body of fate, has so much more to offer than what I knew then.

I would never have known that I would land my first job in consulting - a job which I had no idea existed or what it entailed, through the people I met whilst working in a hotel restaurant. This then led to me meeting an amazing group of friends that taught me what a good friendship looks like and how I can be a better friend to others.

The consulting chapter

My consulting career exposed me to so many industries I knew nothing about and the high-pressure, fast-paced environment pushed me to develop myself at exponential speed to make the most of the potential that I had. I think back at this time and if I were pursuing my accounting career, I never would have developed the skillsets I have now or the ability to handle and navigate high-pressure environments and high stakes situations. Through my work, in the global company I worked for, I was able to see and learn from incredibly talented people from so many ways of life and all around the world.

The Sydney chapter

My network expanded and I learned how to create and nurture relationships as well as how to influence others. This network then eventually led me to several life altering turns. The first, being my move from my little bubble in old Canberra (Australia’s capital) to Sydney with a new client in a whole new industry. I was visiting Sydney one weekend and was on a date in Potts Point where I happened to run into an old colleague from a project in Canberra. This led to him telling me he had a role he was desperately trying to fill but would need me to relocate to Sydney. On Monday, I reached out to him asking if this opportunity was real and it was. Two weeks later I was on a plane to Sydney, started house hunting and started on my new project. Crazy right.

The career change and total mindset shift chapter

This chapter was the most eye opening and really catapulted me towards the path that I am on now. After moving to a pharmaceutical project where I found myself working 16 hour days, waking up for my first call at 6am and finishing my last calls at 1am whilst also coaching 4 people and also working on new business proposals in parallel. Not to mention COVID hit, and I was home 100% of the time, spending 80% of my time in my office in front of a screen. I was a robot. A robot that would automatically wake up at 5:45am, work, talk, eat, and put itself to bed at 1am. I spent 9 months on auto-pilot when one day I found myself on a 10pm call and my housemate and other friend were still waiting for me in the living room to join them for a movie and for some reason I just had this epiphany moment where I came off auto-pilot and through to myself “What the hell am I doing? Is this really how I want to be living my life? This isn’t living. There has to be a better life than this”.

30s and beyond - my current chapter

The story of this chapter is still unfolding. As I reached my 30th birthday, I went on a spiral of thoughts which were looking backwards, reflecting on where I had come from, and looking forwards to where I want to go to now. I see multiple pathways ahead that are full of opportunity, but equally with more options comes the onset of decision paralysis and being overwhelmed. So I’ll take you on a the journey of how I work through this and share any hurdles or learnings along the way so I can help others who may be at that same point of life and facing the same thing.

Thats all for now!

Joyce x