I recently had a dramatic job change. My field of education and expertise is generally the real estate, property valuations and facility management field but I have been feeling woefully inadequate in that area. Coupled with the issue of unemployment which has resulted in very low wages paid to graduates in Ghana, I decided it was time to find myself. Now, in a society where expertise in this area is virtually non-existent, I had to find myself the hard way. Started at very odd jobs, helping people here and there, asking friends and family weird questions and reading a lot of books on psychology.
Here’s what I wanted and what everyone was pushing me to do. I wanted a crazy job, something that would challenge me, push me out of my box and comfort zone (I was too comfortable), make me do the hard work and teach me the real things I needed in life. I was not thinking about the money at all(which is what everyone wanted me to do) and I felt I had so much time that this was the most appropriate time of my life to find myself and start something amazing from there. In school, I was no where near the best in academics because I was doing so much co-curricular activities. Helping social organisations, involved in student leadership, entrepreneurship and many more.
Looking back, I believe I have been trying sub-consciously to find myself all these years. I have always been so selfless with my time because unknown to me, I wanted to know if the opportunity to find myself was in any of those co-curricular activities. I was and still am terribly scared of the morning to evening work routine. I cannot understand why I would sign up to repeating the same thing over and over again. Sad news is, the salary is usually static, increment seldom comes and when it does, it is peanuts. I wanted more. So much more that I was ready to relax at home and figure it all out as most of my mates found great and meaningful jobs in less than two months after our national service. Yes, it was scary and disappointing to the extent that I took a managerial job from my former boss to grow his delivery business. Still in the process of finding myself. Then it became unbearable when I realized the task of managing a struggling startup with no capital at all was a dead end. I got back home and continued my self discovery process. It was getting depressing at this point, with no money in any of my accounts and yet with so much potential to excel anywhere I find myself.
I had registered for a professional course in Valuation and Estate Surveying with the regulatory body of the course earlier and had a good relationship with the head of a top valuation company in the country by then. I paid them a visit and asked for permission to intern with them as they train me to become a professional valuer and they obliged.
It was in this position that I chanced on a friend’s status stating a business development coach was in need of a personal assistant. I did not know why I was interested in the role, but I gave him a call, had a long interview on phone and jumped into the craziest phase of my life yet. This job was so different it didn’t even qualify to be called a job. My working hours are out of the normal and my Key Performance Indices were scary. I settled for it. I settled for it because I felt I could find myself in it. It turns out to be the very last phase of finding myself and the onset of developing the ‘self’ I have found unknowingly. It is very though here in all aspects but I know this is the hurdle I need to cross to grow.
So here is my summary on ‘getting you’. To me, it doesn’t have to be according to the books. Finding you can be something you actually started right from infancy without knowing especially for those who had challenges as kids and had to figure it out on their own. Trust your instincts than any human on this planet and go the narrow way your sub-conscious self is telling you to go. Allow yourself to pass through the ‘non-understandables’ and keep moving. In that darkness, you will come to the light. Trust your guts, don’t follow the crowd.
