Life Doesn’t Always Go To Plan – Featuring Alice In Sheffield

Has something happened to you that you thought was awful at the time, but actually ended up being much better for you in the long run? This week I am featuring a guest post from the wonderful Alice In Sheffield. Here is her tale of how life doesn’t always go to plan, but often turns out out for the best.

‘Life doesn’t always go to plan (but turns out for the best)’

As I sat there in the nursery smiling along, singing the songs and educating the children there it dawned on me that this was my life now and I hated every minute of it.

I’d picked a university choice through clearing, I did three whole years of a Primary Education Studies degree and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. See, I’ve always enjoyed working with children, understanding their development, how to get the most out of them and their achievements. I followed this up with a developmental psychology Masters degree. To learn more about the intricacies behind our development and how this could help me in my future career. I was certain this would involve working with children in some capacity.

Trapped

Only…when I left university, and it wasn’t just the odd day supply it was a full-time occupation, I couldn’t bear it at all. I couldn’t understand why after four years of studying and enjoying it I didn’t like what the result had become. I felt trapped. Every morning I was dreading going into work. It wasn’t fair on the children I was caring for. I of course gave it my all, but I wasn’t happy. I felt utterly lost and helpless at what I thought my path was going to be. This was my life now. I’d spent four years getting here, how do you explain to people that it isn’t actually what you want?

I was working supply in a school local to me, but I found I was finding reasons not to go. From supplying 5 days a week I went to 3, and some weeks I didn’t accept any positions at all. I was getting in a really dark space mentally as I figured surely this is something up with me? This is what I wanted, what I always wanted so why wasn’t I happy? There were other external factors at play of course, I wasn’t particularly happy in my relationship, I was finding it tricky being an adult at home with my parents and I just suffered from the millennial syndrome of being lost. Not being able to afford anything and yet I still couldn’t force myself to accept more work.

Deciding to change

Through many heart to hearts with my mum we decided that what is the point in a university degree if the actual job made me so desperately unhappy. We don’t know how life will go at 14 when we have to pick GCSE options. We don’t know at 18 when we have to pick University options. And quite frankly how do you decide at 21 where on earth you want your life to be? I’m 26 now, it’s only in the last year I’ve started seeing things falling in place and thinking I’ve got this adulting business sorted.

What could I do instead?

I started racking my brains on transferable skills, what the hell did I learn through my four years education and where could I go now? It was during this time I got chatting with my agency consultant, she’d been sending me the supply work and noticed I’d been turning a lot down. I had a huge heart to heart with her about where I was at and she suggested something I’d never even considered before – recruitment.

She basically suggested I investigated the role she was doing, it involved a lot of interacting with people, organization, sales and IT. The more I thought about it and read up about what the role entailed the more it seemed to fit what I wanted, my nature, the ability to talk to people often, apply workplace psychology and the emotions that can run through people looking for a new role.

Changing course

I applied for a few educational recruitment positions and I’d say one of those interviews was an absolute disaster and made me question if I was making the wrong choice. Again.

But on my way back from that interview I had a call about another role, it wasn’t education it was solely IT.

Now I’m not an IT whizz but I know my way around a computer and felt I could hold my own. I went for the interview, and instantly felt at ease and just found it a whole lot more enjoyable than the education roles. Three years later here I am, still in my IT recruitment role and for the most point really enjoying it.

My current role isn’t education. It doesn’t apply to my undergraduate degree at all and is a million miles away from where I expected my life to be. But it’s given me the ability to learn and develop my skills, earn enough money to buy a house, a car and fantastic holidays.

This isn’t me bragging, this is me showing how I went from rock bottom and genuinely questioning where I’m going with my life to turning that all around and then some in the space of three years (exactly the time my undergrad degree took)

Life’s funny isn’t it? I fully believe that it works out how it’s supposed to and now have a much stronger trust in letting things happen in their own way and time.

Life Doesn’t Always Go To Plan

If you enjoyed this post, or want to find out more about Alice, please do go check out her fabulous blog at: AliceInSheffield.com

Alice is from Sheffield. She says that she was born there in 1993 and she never left! She has been blogging since she was 13 about what she knows and loves, about the places to go and the things to see in Sheffield. And about finding her feet at adulting.

You can also follow her on Twitter on twitter.com/aliceinsheff

On Instagram at Instagram.com/aliceinsheff

Or at Facebook at Facebook.com/aliceinsheff

I totally agree with Alice’s points about not knowing what you want to do with your life when you are so young. Even once you’ve done your degree, it might not be the right job for you. For this reason sometimes exam results do not truly matter either. Sometimes things turn out for the best even if you don’t think you’ve got the results you wanted.

Do you have a story about how life doesn’t always go to plan? Check out my post here on how your story could be featured. I would love to hear it!