16 Aug 2020

Ahhh, it’s the question on everyone’s lips at the moment. How do you know you’re making the right decision after school? Like, should you be going to uni? Should you be getting a job? Will future you regret everything and wish you chose one thing before another?

Truth is, you’ll never know for sure whether you’re making the right decision or not. It’s only in ten years, through the power of hindsight, that you’ll sit down with a tea and think "oh yes, I’m awfully glad I chose to do that."

There will be times you’ll regret the path you’ve chosen. It’s inevitable. Some people who go travelling will feel a twinge of regret when they return and find their mates have already knocked a year off their degree. Uni kids will dream of the kind of cash flow their working mates are basking in. Work mates will question whether they should quit their job and travel. Whatever it made be, you will question yourselves at a variety of stages throughout your life.

So what’s the first thing you should do?

Choose something you think you’ll love

Choose something you want to try. Choose something you think will make you a better human being. Choose something that aligns with what you like doing in your free time. Like collecting bugs? Go study biology. Spend your days stalking #instatravellers? Go travel. Cry every time you look at your empty bank balance? Get a full time gig.

If you’ve got two things you think you’ll love and you can’t choose between those, grab a coin and flip it. Label one thing heads, one thing tails. When it’s in the air, you’ll know what you want it to land on. That’s what you should choose.

And what if it sucks and fails and blunders and you’re left frustrated because you made the 'wrong' decision?

Well, you didn’t.

Because at least you have answers.

Say you chose something your parents or teachers or mates told you to do instead? Then you’d spend the rest of your life wondering what would have happened if you chose what you actually wanted to do when you left school. It’s better to have answers early, than no answers at all.

So, the moral of the story: how will you know if you’re making the right decision? You won’t. Just choose something you think you love because you’ll find out soon enough whether you will continue to, or whether you won’t at all. The best thing to come out of every experience is a direction for your next one.

Jump over here and check out our Year13 Future of Work Expo, packed with speakers killing it in their industries talking about all their experiences and how they go to where they are today to give you a bit of inspo.