Square Peg in a Round Hole

"Find out what you like doing best, and get someone to pay you for it". Katherine Whitehorn, British journalist.

Some extracts from my upcoming book, Breakdown and Repair, to be launched on March 25th.

"In my early twenties, I started working for Unilever, the global consumer goods company co-headquartered in Rotterdam and London. It’s one of the oldest and largest companies in the world and its household brands, like Dove, Axe, Knorr, Magnum, and Domestos, are available in around 190 countries.

Unilever is a prestigious organisation which boasts one of the most established and respected management trainee programmes for young people who want to forge a career in business. As a result, this scheme is highly competitive. I succeeded in joining it in the autumn of 1988, working for Birds Eye Wall’s, one of its operating companies at the time and I was pretty proud of my achievement.

The career roadmap over the next ten years was now neatly laid out in front of me and the future seemed bright. Trainee to Brand Manager to Marketing Manager to Marketing Director. Easy as 1,2,3.

The first few days, weeks, and months were all fairly uneventful. I was a marketing trainee going through a series of job rotations, interspersed with residential training courses every few months or so. I was part of a cohort of other new joiners dabbling in the world of big business for the first time. Nobody was under any great pressure to perform, no big expectations placed on you. You were on a steep learning curve and most mistakes were quickly forgiven.

Twelve months later, I found myself pacing up and down the basement of the Birds Eye Wall’s building in Walton-on-Thames liked a caged animal. I was alone, surrounded only by freezers full of frozen beef burgers and fish fingers and my own confused thoughts. I was trying to work out why I was suddenly feeling so anxious, why I seemed incapable of completing the most basic of tasks at my desk upstairs. I just needed a bit of head space, away from people, to think clearly and try and work out what on earth was going on in my frazzled mind. I wasn’t swamped by major decisions or weighed down under huge amounts of work pressure or imminent deadlines. I was only a trainee, the lowest of the low.

A couple of weeks earlier, I had started fretting over every small decision, and with the increased fretting came further indecision. The more indecisive I became, the less productive I was. And the less productive I was, the longer it took me to work my way through the ‘to do’ list for the day. The pressure was gradually building.

One day, I looked at that ‘to do’ list of mine and found myself incapable of doing anything on it. I froze. That’s when the basement wandering started.

I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me. This had all come on very quickly, with no obvious warning signs. It had snuck in stealthily underneath the radar and I became very fearful of the events that were slowly unfolding. It was a very uncomfortable and unpleasant sensation I had never experienced before.

The root problem was I had found myself in the wrong job. As a brand manager, I was often at the centre of things, continually involved in decision-making, day in and day out. What’s your view on this? Or that? This pantone colour, or this one? A small beef burger, or a larger one? TV campaign or press advertising? ￡2 million budget or ￡3 million? This position of responsibility and the constant need to make judgment calls were pure paradise to my peers, but not to me. There was too much uncertainty, too much grey, not enough black and white. And there was no time to sit back and reflect.

The job certainly wasn’t to blame. And neither was the company. Brand management in Unilever is a great job. Just not a great one for me. I was a square peg in a round hole."

Mental Note: Two decisions in life play a fundamental role in determining the quality of your mental health: finding the right career and picking the right long-term partner. As far as the former is concerned, the top tip is to assess your own character, your strengths and weaknesses, your values and motivations as accurately and as early as possible. And then find a working environment that fits.

You can pre-order my book, Breakdown and Repair, on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breakdown-Repair-Fathers-Success-Inspirational/dp/1912478994/ref

I will be posting once a week on LinkedIn and you can also follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentalhealthmark/