We all have dreams, but we often tell ourselves “that won’t happen.” And often, we do nothing.
That was me in 1999, after I posted at least 20 CVs trying to secure a job. These were checkout operators in “Foodtown” (now “Countdown”) to receptionists, I didn’t receive one single interview, and couldn’t understand why.
Now I know I was overqualified: I was someone with a banking and finance degree, having come from a sales executive job in a five-star hotel in China. I was very deflated and didn’t know why nobody wanted to employ me. Thinking of other places to apply, I realised I’d always wanted to work in a bank, but I was afraid to apply as I “believed” that my English was very poor. I was talking to Nola, my then boyfriend –now husband’s– nana, and she urged me to go for it. There was nothing for me to lose so I went ahead and applied. Not long after that, I received a call from the bank. It was a phone interview (which went fairly well as my English wasn’t actually as bad as I thought), followed by a maths test in town (The test was easy, but getting to the city from a state house in Panmure as a new immigrant was not), then I was told I got the job. This was amazing news (I later served 15 years with them).
One of my dreams had come true! Since then, my dreams have kept coming true, one by one!
What did I do? The concept is simple, but learning and putting it into practice is hard: Believe, and commit to it!
~Lucia