18 ways to manifest a career that’s right for you

Education and success are two core values in Jewish culture. While I'm privileged to have received tuition at a private Jewish day school, I'm also still recovering from the teacher's-pet-slash-chronic-over-achieving-slash-people-pleasing syndrome that more often than not afflicts ‘nice Jewish girls’.

I’m not saying that being instilled with a motivation to succeed and having a sense of ambition are not good cultural values. I also appreciate that they stem from our ancestors' trauma, who throughout history have had to be self-sufficient and self-reliant in order to survive. It makes sense that faffing about and making mistakes are not rewarded attributes. Especially today, given how fraught it is to be Jewish, it feels like we're all striving extra hard to be considered good and worthy members of the diaspora.

But up until now, at 34 years old, I’ve tried to be the student and young professional that I thought was good and right – and that would result in admiration and respect from my family, peers and community. Today, I’m finally learning what being successful, fulfilled and happy means to me.

For a while, I was ashamed to admit that I dropped out of a Bachelor Arts and Science degree (rather, I failed a whole semester and was gently uninvited to return the following year). While I ended up graduating from a degree I loved (International Studies) – after adding a Master of Teaching to my lovely HECS debt, I realised that teaching wasn’t for me.

Three career changes later – from education to marketing and now public relations – I’ve finally found my calling and what I’m good at (who knew my natural chutzpah would be a career asset!).