The simple act of telling someone what you want to achieve can take a lot of courage. For me, saying it out loud meant risking failure or sounding outrageously ambitious. It was easier to keep those dreams to myself so I could fly under the radar. If I didn't achieve them, at least no one else would know, right?
Can you relate? Do you feel embarrassed to tell others what you truly desire in life?
Well the flip side of it is: When you tell someone what you want, you're much more likely to achieve it. I should know. It happened to me and it completely changed the course of my life.
My Yearning for Adventure
One of the main reasons for me choosing my first ever job was to do with my travel desires. While it was an Australian company, they had one office over in London. I had always pictured myself living and working in London for at least a couple of years. After spending half a year in Malaysia as part of a university exchange program, I fell in love with the idea of knowing the best cafes, shops and shortcuts in a little patch of the world so far away from home. It was the adventure I yearned for and this seemed like a good first step.
But I knew this wasn't to happen for ages yet. What I had to do was work for a few years at the company, prove myself to be valuable and then seek for opportunities to transfer to the London office. I'd be staying put for Melbourne for the first chapter of my career.
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Working Hard or Hardly Working?
I loved going to work during that first year. I made some amazing friends in the office so it felt like I had gone back to school. We took turn making each other coffees, competing to see who could create the best latte art. We'd gather at lunchtime to do the Herald Sun daily quiz. And on Friday evenings, the usual suspects would drink the beer fridge dry and head to the pub across the road to continue on.
During this time I was extremely lucky to have had a unofficial mentor. She was everything I wanted to be and more and I absolutely adored her. There was no mentoring programme, I just happened to land in her team during one of my graduate rotations and we hit it off. We shared the same sense of humour, she was ambitious and warm at the same time and most of all, I admired the fact that she didn't compromise her family or social life.
I Said It for the First Time
As I got to know her, I opened up to her about my wild dream of living and working in London one day. I even admitted that one of the reasons our company appealed to me was the tiny chance that I could possible move to the UK one day, far far away in the future. I thought she'd just tell me that was nice thought and move on. But she said something unexpected: "You should tell your boss."
At first I felt shocked. It was a big enough deal that I was even mentioning this crazy faraway dream of mine to my mentor and friend. She lifted this crazy idea up ten thousand notches and made it real in an instant.
I blushed. I laughed. I said no. I changed the subject.
My Inner Resistance
I can't recall how long this went on for but for our next few meetings, my mentor would keep bringing it up and encouraging me to tell my boss. What good would it do? I'd ask. It wouldn't amount to anything anyway. But deep down inside, I knew it was because although I'd told myself I'd move to the UK one day, I had no real plan of making it a reality.
I knew where I was in that moment. I had a far off dream. What I hadn't done was think about joining the dots between the two moments. Here was my mentor telling me that the first step wasn't joining this company. The first step was making my goals official by telling my boss.
Testing the Waters with My Boss
After a long lunch with my mentor, I finally had enough resisting the idea. She'd built me up to have the conversation so I promised her I'd start the discussion as soon as I got back to my desk. I still wanted to wimp out at that point so instead of tapping him on the shoulder, I hid behind my screen and sent my boss an email:
"Hi, I know you're really busy and we're not due for a catch up yet, but I wondered whether you'd have 15 minutes some time next week for a quick chat? If not don't worry, it's not really important. Tiff"
To my absolute horror, 30 seconds after I hit send, my boss was standing right behind me. "Tiff I have 15 minutes before my next meeting. Let's meet now."
It Felt Like Life Had Taken Control
WHOA this was spinning out of control. Although it might not seem like it to you, admitting I had a dream of moving to the UK that day to my mentor was already a massive step. It was like this hidden secret desire I had kept inside of me for years had been leaked. Now I had to talk to my boss about it that afternoon? I wasn't sure I could handle it.
We sat down in the only meeting room in our office that had clear glass on all 4 sides. It was like a fishbowl that everyone looked into on their way to the toilet around the corner - there was a lot of traffic and I felt totally exposed.
The Sudden Guilt
At that moment, I realised why I had been so resistant to talking to my boss about it. It felt like I was betraying him and the team. They'd trained me up from a lowly, fresh out of university graduate into a partially useful engineer. I didn't want to seem ungrateful for what I had taken from the team by now telling him that I wanted to move. Although I knew that this still wouldn't be for years to come anyway. So my fears were probably a little premature and silly. By the time I moved to the UK (if ever) we'd probably be working in different teams anyway.
On top of that, I had only been at the company for less than a year. Who was I to be demanding my desires to a boss who was way more senior than me?
Me: "Uhh, thanks for meeting with me. To be honest I'm a little nervous. My mentor put me up to this. I wasn't going to say anything because it's kind of irrelevant anyway but she said I should tell you what my future career goals are cos managers should know this stuff..."
Boss: "Tiff, there's no need to be nervous. You can tell me whatever is on your mind but please could you spit it out because I have another meeting to run to shortly."
Me: "I want to move to the London office. But one day way off in the future. I know it won't be for ages and there's probably no opportunities there right now, espeically for a graduate that they'd still need to train up. And It's not because I want to escape the team or anything like that. I really like working with you and you're a really great boss in fact I'm so grateful for everything you've done and..."
Boss: "Ok great, I'll see what I can do."
Before I could reiterate that I wasn't thinking of really moving for years anyway, he was off. He slid open the fishbowl door and walked off in that calm, heavy footed pace he always kept.
Things Only Accelerated From There
A week later, my called me into the very same meeting room.
"You'll never guess what happened. There's a mechanical engineer in the London office who wants to move back to Melbourne in a few months time. We need to send someone else over and since you told me you wanted to move, it would really help us out if you were willing to ship out in 3 months time. What do you think?"
What did I think? I didn't know what I was thinking. This was wild! What the heck! I wanted to jump up and down, I was nervous, I felt like things were moving way faster than I thought it would happen. I said yes.
Can You Get Impostor Syndrome About Moving Countries?
I was in a state of disbelief for those 3 months. There were so many points at which I didn't know if the opportunity would be taken away from me.
First there was the long drawn visa application process. Then there were a couple of nasty people in the office who kicked up a bit of a fuss (not that they wanted to leave Melbourne, they just felt it was unfair that a young grad got asked to move to the UK office). And finally, my start date in London was on April 1st. Was this just one big April Fools prank on me?
My Whole Life Changed
Moving to across the world gave me career experiences I never would have dreamed of. One of my most valuable learnings was the ability to adapt to a different culture. I truly believe I became a better leader later on in life because of this.
Fast forward 8 years, I'm now married to the guy who started in that same London office within a week of me joining. We travelled the world together. We share incredibly fun and supportive friends around the world. We lived in Melbourne. We got two dogs then moved back to the UK (with the dogs of course).
My life completely changed because I told my boss what I wanted. I feel so fortunate that I had a mentor (my guardian angel, I suspect) who pushed me when I needed it most.
My Life Changing Challenge to You
What I want you to take away from this story is that when you tell even just one person what you want, you double the amount of eyes and ears looking for opportunities out there. Who cares if you feel a little bit embarrassed to tell someone your dreams? When it can completely transform your future, that teeny bit of discomfort is nothing compared with the possibilities it can give you.
I leave you with a question and a challenge:
What's something you want to achieve in the future that seems too difficult or even impossible?
Tell one person about it before 11am tomorrow.
Do your career goals seem too impossible to achieve? Book a call with me - I’ll help you take the first step.