Do your best, don't panic and follow your heart

HSC exams can feel like the gateway to adulthood and the penalty for not killing it on the day can feel like a noose around your future.

The idea that at 17 or 18 years of age, you need to know what you want to do for the rest of your life is an incredible weight for young shoulders to bear.

I remember all too well being afraid of making the wrong choice at just 17 while I was putting in my university applications and considering what I was going to do, before I even really knew what the options were.

I went with the "safe" option.

The "known" option.

Both my parents are retired teachers, so teaching became my goal.

I applied for a Bachelor of Arts degree at Monash University with the goal of following it with a Graduate Diploma of Education.

However, when I got to university, I discovered that the career options out there weren't limited to teacher, doctor, nurse, or lawyer, and I got lost on my way to the Grad Dip and found myself studying Honours in History instead!

My subsequent meandering career path took me into public service, then recruitment/HR and now, as a successful sole trader in Career Development.

I appear to be a subscriber to the Chaos Theory of Career Development.

Don't get me wrong, there's a part of me that still yearns for the classroom and I regularly indulge this seemingly genetic pull through the workshops, seminars and presentations that I deliver through my current work.

But it turns out that teaching, in general, doesn't pull at my inner sense of purpose.

As a careers practitioner, perhaps I'm meant to have my ducks all in a row and not feel like I'm running around hunched over with my arms stretched out, desperately trying to herd them together. And yet here I am, struggling to catch the little quackers.

While I love what I do, as a careers practitioner, and I find the work rewarding, my passion for advocacy and community support has led me to take on a Juris Doctor degree, and it turns out that I love law.

If I can say that just one week after finishing my law exams for the year, it must be true love!

To be honest, it almost feels like a betrayal of my profession as a careers practitioner to be considering a change in career at almost 40-years-old, but that's where I find myself.

Law was meant to be an additional string to my bow, not the instrument, but this experience has taught me a valuable lesson. One that my husband has been very quick to point out is rather ironic given my current job.

You see, in any given moment, the best decision that we can make for ourselves can only be related to who we are at that point in time.

At 17 years of age, we might know exactly what we want to do for the rest of our lives, or we might not have a clue. We might still not know at 30, at 40, at 50! So, we make the best decision that we can in the moment, with the tools and options available to us at the time. That's all we can ask of ourselves.

I'm not afraid to say that I don't know what my own future holds.

It's okay to not have an end goal in sight. But if you aren't sure, it's really important to keep your eyes open to opportunities.

In this day and age, it is likely that what you end up doing might not even be invented yet!

My parents told me to follow my passions, so that's what I did.

If my GP can tell me - after countless years and dollars spent on a medical degree - that she is also contemplating a Juris Doctor degree, then I think we can all feel safe in knowing that our stars are not set in stone at 17.

So, my dear Year 12 students, do your best, don't panic and follow your heart. The rest will follow.

And parents, trust me. It will all work out in the end.

Zoë Wundenberg is a careers consultant and un/employment advocate at impressability.com.au