Does your job fit your personality?

‘I don’t want to be a secretary!’ I remember screaming when my mother told me of her plans to send me to business college.

My mother came from another generation. Apart from a few years as a nurse, she never worked. Instead, she was a stay-at-home mum.

While I know my mother was doing what she thought best, I just knew that legal secretarial was the wrong fit. I was going to university, wasn’t I, like most of my other friends? I was good at English and writing. I had a creative mind. Teachers were always telling my parents that I was one of the best writers and researchers in the class. Why would they be pushing for me to become a secretary?

‘You need to pay your way’, my mother said. Unlike other people my age, I never got a job at the local Coles or Woolworths when I was in my early teens. If I could support myself, I could go to university, I was told, but I needed a job.

Maths was never my strong point. Quite the opposite. I was always terrible at it and never progressed beyond kindy level—the rods stage. Safe to say, I flunked the Coles test when I applied.

At 17 or 18, only a select few know what they want to do. Most people fall into careers because of family expectations or because they got certain marks, so logic dictates they should pursue something like medicine or law.

While I didn’t know specifically what I wanted to do when I left school, I was drawn to the Arts and thought journalism or communications would be a good fit. But I couldn’t land a part-time job, so I gave in to my mother’s demands. Off to business college I went, begrudgingly so. I deferred the offer to study for a Bachelor of Arts at Sydney University. I was entering the corporate world now.

On the wrong path

An obvious sign that you’re following the wrong career path is that you struggle at it, like every day is an uphill battle. At business school I never shone. I was just another student, and getting quite average grades at that. But I somehow pulled through, and at the very least, I learned how to type.

The real test came when I started working in a law firm. My mother’s uncle had been a founding partner in a boutique law firm in Sydney’s Macquarie Street, and I think she thought there was some prestige in working for lawyers. She thought it was a stable, decent job.

From the moment I started at Minter Ellison, I hated it. This reflected in my work because I wasn’t into it. I wasn’t fast enough, made too many mistakes, couldn’t keep up with deadlines or seem to follow simple instructions. Nothing was too complicated, but I just wasn’t interested in the work. Instead, my mind was always drifting. Daydreaming.

It was only a matter of time before the partner and lawyer called me in for a chat. They were both really nice about it, but suggested perhaps I’d be happier if I went to university. They realised legal secretarial wasn’t my calling.

My intuition tried to guide me early on

During that first year of working, I got a hint of the path I should be taking. I read an article about Colleen McCullough and how she had forged a successful career as a writer. It then dawned on me—why hadn’t I thought of that before? A writer? I had never considered becoming an author. It had never occurred to me you could make a viable living from it, but Colleen McCullough proved there were writers in this world who made a decent living from their passion for words.

I have an interesting ancestor, James Tyson. Banjo Paterson wrote a poem about him called T.Y.S.O.N. My mother named one of my brothers after him and had his photo pinned to our dining room wall. He was the son of a convict made good who become Australia’s first self-made millionaire. For James, the stigma attached to his family’s convict past only ignited the flame of determination in a young man who wanted to change his family’s destiny and make his mother proud. James, together with his brother William, set up a butcher shop to supply meat to miners in the Bendigo goldfields. James used the profits to purchase pastoral property. By the time of his death in 1898, his land holdings extended from North Queensland to Victoria, an estate estimated to be worth £2.5 million.

James was an enigmatic character who shunned high-society and the usual trappings of wealth, preferring to live a humble life on the land. He was someone who believed that luxuries were a waste of money. While frugal, James wasn’t miserly, and it is said the Aboriginal Australians, our Traditional Owners, regarded him kindly. James was one to never drink, swear or smoke and insisted his tea be brewed in a billy can. Extremely shy, James never married.

During the brief period I spent researching his life, I recall a note that James used to look up to the stars. He believed that if he followed where they led, he would ultimately reach his destiny. The Tyson myth is captivating, and I thought James’ life could make an intriguing story. However, after only a few weeks, I stopped researching for my novel about James Tyson and put my notes and the papers away, never looking at them again. I lacked the grit that inspired James Tyson to change the course of his destiny.

Fear of failure held me back

The self-doubt had crept in—an underlying fear of failure. Moreover, I knew that writing a novel was a monumental task and a mind-numbing job seemed somehow less complicated. Easier. While I didn’t like my job, I was still comfortable. Too comfortable. I took the opposite path to James, spending the little I earned on unnecessary luxuries. Years later, I see that the mindless spending of my 20s was a symptom of dissatisfaction with my life and the fact that I was unfulfilled in my work.

Instead of being honest with myself, I simply applied for another job and soon it became a repeating pattern, hopping from job to job, doing my best to feign interest and before the cracks showed. I told a recruiter I planned to study a Bachelor of Arts and she implied this would be a waste of time and that I should apply myself to something more ‘useful’ like commerce. This time I would allow no one to influence me or push me into doing something I knew I wouldn’t be interested in, let alone good at.

I was 27 when I began to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree via correspondence. After two years of studying by correspondence, I transferred to Sydney University to continue my degree full-time, having no regrets about leaving the corporate world behind. I enjoyed studying—it engaged my mind and honed my research skills. I believe that studying, especially by correspondence, provided me with the discipline needed to see a project through to the end. The plan was that after I completed my studies, I would travel overseas and this experience would provide me with the inspiration to write that all elusive novel.

I was 30 and in my last months of study when I met Andreas (not his real name). Andreas was tall, blonde and handsome—something I put down to his mixed heritage, Irish and Austrian. At the time we started dating, I realised I needed money. Whilst I had sworn to myself that I’d never get a job in an office again, I applied for a job as a word processing operator. The position was at a prestigious law firm and the hours were less—only 4pm to 9pm—so five hours a day. Not so bad, I thought.

However, it was a trap. Only hours before my interview, I was walking through Grace Brothers (now Myer) in Sydney’s bustling CBD when I went momentarily blind. There were a few seconds where I couldn’t see. My heart seemed to bounce out of my chest wall, like I was having a heart attack. It was frightening. I ran to the nearest doctor, and they asked me to breathe into a paper bag. It appeared I was having a panic attack, they said. Was there something in my life that had changed or was causing excessive stress?

This was my body’s way of telling me I was making the wrong decision, for deep down I knew I didn’t want to go back to work in a law firm, even if the hours were less. I didn’t want to work in an office because it was the wrong choice for me.

Ironically, Andreas planned to travel overseas himself, to get lucrative work as an underwater welder. Each of us compromised our plans of travel and adventure in order to be in a relationship. Ultimately, the relationship wasn’t meant to be. I think I realised this early on, that we weren’t compatible. Andreas was controlling, and I was anxious, but my fears of being alone held me back and trapped, not only in an unhealthy relationship, but in a job I hated.

Personality tests were only confirmation of what I already knew

Several few years later, I came across an article in a magazine about how shapes reveal personality. You look at five shapes—circle, rectangle, square, squiggle, rectangle—and the one you are most drawn to reveals your dominant personality type and traits. As I scanned my eyes over each shape, there was no doubt which one I felt drawn to—the squiggle. When I read about what a squiggle represents—a creative, “what if” person whose mind never stops and does cognitive leaps from A to F; someone who sees the forest and misses the trees; a person who dislikes highly structured environments and has a low tolerance of the mundane and a short attention span; a person who, if they don’t get excitement at work, you’ll cause it elsewhere in your life—I knew why I had struggled so much as a secretary. Why I’d always felt like a square peg in a round hole.

My personality was the wrong fit for my job. Not only was it the wrong fit, but the polar opposite to the personality type best suited to structured environments and administrative tasks, where organisation and attention to detail are prerequisites to succeed.

I then recalled the time about five years earlier while I was working in another large law firm and they invited a career expert out. All the secretaries had gathered together for a special presentation and the lady gave us a personality test to do according to the Myers-Briggs type indicator or MBTI. While most of the girls received the same result (I can’t remember specifically what this was, but my guess is it was probably an ENFJ) I was the only one who was an INFP and I distinctly recall the careers profiler looking at me, as if she couldn’t understand why I’d be working in a law firm. An INFP is someone who is creative and relies on intuition as opposed to nitty-gritty details—not exactly the best fit for a highly structured law firm where attention to detail is a must. At the time I didn’t think much about it, but as I started to research personality types it made perfect sense.

I have since undertaken another similar personality test which brought me to the same conclusion. According to the Holland, I’m Creative or Artistic—the complete opposite to the Conventional type who enjoys working with data and is organised and detail oriented.

Whilst it was daunting to realise that I’d spent the best part of my life in roles I wasn’t suited to, it also confirmed why I felt a strong inclination to write. Many authors are squiggles, INFPs, and artistic people. I needed to trust and follow my instincts if I was to change my destiny.

What’s your unique gift?

In order to excel, you need to have not only an aptitude for it—an innate ability—but also an interest. If you’re not interested in something, it is unlikely you’ll excel at it. Even if you do well, you won’t get the same sense of fulfilment you’d get doing something you enjoy.

Everyone is gifted at something. The key is discovering what this gift is. Often, it is during our early school years that such gifts manifest. As unique individuals, we are all have different gifts and capabilities, and this is a good thing. It would be very boring if we were all the same. For example, a child may be especially good at certain things, such as painting, building, music, languages, organisation, numbers, writing, sports or helping others. If such gifts are recognised, fostered and encouraged, they can lead to great things.

While I spent many years following the wrong path, I believe I’m now on the right one and living an authentic life, one full of promise and purpose.

If you’re unsure of what you want to do or feel you’re in the wrong job, I recommend you undertake a personality test. It may help direct you on the right path and towards what you were born to do.

While I haven’t got the entrepreneurial spirit that James Tyson had, starting a business in his early 20s and making a fortune at a young age, I believe I share some of his determination. His story is still waiting to be discovered. I hope I am the person to write it.