Never act on impulse. Think about the impact your words can have (and actions too – even standing by and laughing about someone behind their back is as cruel as the words you’re laughing at) and try to resolve your issues calmly. Be diplomatic, use your words, and you’ll be able to dedicate more of your time to the people you like instead of to the people that you’re upset with. Isn’t that a better use of our time?
You Can Only Do Your Best
Rarely is there a pressure bigger than the one you put on yourself to achieve and succeed. Of course, pressure from parents who want you to get straight As and become a lawyer or a doctor is horrid (thankfully, I never experienced that), and pressure from teachers to get a perfect grade when they don’t seem to take into account the workload you have in other subjects is enough to put the calmest person on edge, but the fear of letting yourself down in an aspect of your life that you care about is unparalleled. The pressure you put on yourself will continue long after you’ve left school. As you get older, you’ll become all too aware that life is short and you only have a set amount of years to make something of yourself. It’s pretty much inescapable until something clicks in your brain (it tends to happen after forty, apparently. I’ll have to let you know) and you no longer put pressure on yourself to achieve every dream you ever had.
However, I have been very fortunate to have an incredible father in my life who ensured that one phrase was drummed into me from a very young age: You can only do your best.
Realistically, there is only so much revision you can do before you can no longer concentrate. There is only so much your brain can take in. There’ll be some things that just won’t make any sense. For instance, I have never, ever been able to do long division. Every other kid in my maths classes could do long division without even thinking about it – carrying the remainder, dropping numbers down . . . and I just couldn’t do it. Still can’t. For the longest time, I was so insecure about being the only kid that didn’t get it, I would get really upset. I would feel stupid, and put so much pressure on myself to get it right, to the point where I was on the verge of tears when my dad tried to calmly explain the steps over and over again. This wasn’t when I was nine or ten years old, this was when I was sixteen!
Sometimes you might feel as though your best isn’t good enough – and when we’re fed the ‘You can do anything you set your mind to’ line so many times, that reality can be heartbreaking – but what else can you do? My dad always said to me that so long as I put my everything into a task, he couldn’t ask me for more, and because of that, I never felt pressure to achieve more than what was possible for me. Of course, if I didn’t at least try, that was cause for disappointment – from my dad and from myself – but you can only ever do your best. Your best is good enough because you are trying your utmost with everything you have. Remember that.
I was twenty years old the first time I attempted wrestling training. (Yes, I wanted to be a professional wrestler, because professional wrestling is fucking cool.) I’d joined a gym a few weeks prior, doing my best to increase my fitness levels in preparation for the lessons. I walked into the wrestling school, my heart filled with excitement at the prospect of finally taking steps towards achieving my dream – and then I was given my first suplex. If you don’t know what a suplex is, it’s a wrestling move where you are picked up from behind and thrown down on to your back. Wrestling, as it turns out, is not as ‘fake’ as some would have you believe. It hurts. I walked (limped) away from my first lesson in disbelief at how much wrestling demands from the body. I felt in my heart that I simply couldn’t pursue this dream. I was crushed. However, after a short while, I realised that I didn’t need to be a wrestler to work in the wrestling business. There are plenty of roles within the industry that I could fill if I wished to pursue them that I would enjoy just as much (and experience a lot less pain whilst doing so). I could be a backstage presenter, a social media manager for the wrestlers, a production assistant – it is all about exploring different ways to go about your dreams.
I decided to try my hand at professional wrestling again at the age of twenty-five – because when I say ‘give it your all’, I practise what I preach – and I quickly remembered the pain and demand for extreme fitness. If I truly wanted to go for it, I know I would have fought through the pain, but going by the fact that I’ve given up twice, I know that wrestling isn’t truly my dream job. If it was, I know I would stop at nothing to achieve it.
Just make sure that no matter what you are trying to do – whether that’s passing an exam, applying for a job or trying to break into an industry – you give nothing less than your very best. Do not be afraid to make mistakes, as you will learn from them. You owe it to yourself to keep trying your very best and giving everything one hundred and ten per cent – if you don’t, you’ll only have yourself to answer to.
As much as I’ve said that your school grades are the most important thing about school – and they are – if you try your hardest at an exam and still don’t get the grade you wanted, it can be crushing. Listen, this isn’t going to sound like the most tragic example in the world, but at school, I loved studying English Language. I loved creative writing, and my coursework for the subject got the highest mark available (I literally got a perfect score – I’m not too sure this book will reflect that . . .). I was a smug little bastard (that’s not a surprise, is it?) and being the ‘smartest’ (statistically speaking) kid in my class made me feel so much pride in my writing ability that I walked into my exam cocky as all hell. I was going to ace it – only the writing segment was something I hadn’t anticipated. It wasn’t asking me to write a short story, but a piece of journalism based on an excerpt we hadn’t received before the test. I was stunned. I gave it my all, determined to get the highest grade I could, but I was suddenly shaken. I had been so confident that I would get the highest grade imaginable, just as I had with my coursework, and now I was being asked to write completely out of my comfort zone.
When I received my exam result back a few months later, I was devastated. I’d been predicted an A* all the way through my two-year GCSE course, had been revered by my teachers as a teenage prodigy, a future best-selling author (lol) – and I got an A. To make matters worse (without thinking) my disappointed teacher, who had believed in my abilities from the start, told me that the minimum mark I’d needed to get an A* was 134 marks . . . and I’d got 133. I was one mark away from an A*. I was fuming, I was hurt, and I was utterly disappointed with myself. I had let myself down. If only I’d anticipated a journalistic piece, I could have studied for that style of writing, and not let my exam drag down my perfect coursework grade.
For years, this mark stayed on my mind. What if I’d studied harder? What if I’d written differently? Even now as I write this (as an author . . . weird, that) I remember that burning, bitter disappointment I felt when I found out I was one mark away. However, that grade wasn’t the end of the world. I still did incredibly well! I still got my first job, I still got into college, and my heart kept on beating, and most of all I did the best that I could with what I had. Life will sometimes deal you an unfair hand. You will feel cheated, or perhaps you will feel as though you have screwed up somewhere along the line – but I know now that during that exam, despite my situation, I did the best that I could. I couldn’t have tried harder in those sixty short minutes, and in that respect, I achieved a lot.
Equally, there were exams that I didn’t do well in because I didn’t try hard at all – I got a C in GCSE electronics, as well as a U in A level maths, because my heart simply wasn’t in those subjects. The disappointment I felt in myself for not trying as hard as I could burned more then than it did over the English Language exam, where I tried my hardest. If you don’t try as hard as you can, you will always think to yourself, What if? What if I’d tried harder? What if I’d tried at all . . .? If you do try your hardest there is no way you can possibly think that.
There have been times I have been turned down for jobs,
or seen a video that I worked hard on not get the views I’d hoped for – but as long as you try as hard as you possibly can, you can walk away with your head held high. I did everything I could, you can say to yourself in your failure. There was nothing I could have done differently with what I was given. I can only ever do my best. My best is all I can give – and my best is good enough.
9
You Better Werk It
Getting A Job
Contrary to popular belief (or at least, the belief of my nastiest online critics) I do have experience of the ‘real world’ – in a world filled with headlines such as ‘Teenage YouTube Sensation Earns SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR!’ it’s easy to see those who make a living from posting online as naive idiots who have never had a ‘real job’. I very much have had ‘real jobs’ (if we’re assuming what I do for a living now is somehow not real?) and I’ve been chewed up and spat out from many different rungs of the career ladder. Despite my latter jobs all being based in the hospitality sector (I was a waitress. ‘Working in hospitality’ sounds much better), my first job, if you remember, was a weekend position in a big shoe shop in my home town. I’d just turned sixteen, but had been handing out my CV for almost a year in the hope that it would be kept on file. I don’t know whether it was down to my clearly impeccable skills at writing a CV (if you couldn’t tell already, I’m not bad at bigging myself up. My CV basically equated to me saying ‘Listen, hire me, because I’m the absolute tits’), or whether it was luck, but I’ve never really had an issue with at least getting a callback after handing in a CV to a place with a vacancy, and I suppose I’m good at face-to-face interviews. However, when I was sixteen, with only GCSE predictions (having not even taken my exams at this point), I knew that applying for a job in the shoe shop would probably be an unsuccessful venture. This shoe shop practically relied on school kids to run it on the weekends, and the shop would get an average of ten CVs a day. However, due to my impeccable CV-writing skills (and if you recall, probably also due to the pastel blue paper I printed mine on), I got a callback, and after a short interview, I got the job. That’s my tip for you if you’re going for a job where your qualifications can’t put you ahead of others – print your CV on blue paper. Works like a charm.
Oh, and it’s all about how you word your CV. For the record, I can’t tell you to fake your exam results on a CV, because that would be abhorrent, even if they never actually ask to see them. I can’t tell you to get your mum to pretend to be a teacher when your potential employer asks for a reference. I’d never tell you to pretend your hobbies include archery, horseback riding, abseiling and volunteering at a local charity shop because you just love working so damn much. That would be irresponsible, and even if those things did help you get your first job, I am an incredibly excellent role model and would never tell any of you to lie to get a job.
Anyway . . . there are certain words that you might be tempted to use when asked to describe yourself, and you won’t be the only person using them. Don’t say ‘hard-working’. Everyone says that. Say ‘dedicated’ or ‘committed to giving one hundred and ten per cent to helping my team excel’. And don’t say ‘reliable’. Nothing says ‘I’m not actually reliable’ more than saying ‘I am reliable’. If you really were reliable, you wouldn’t have to say it. Same with ‘honest’. You’re basically saying, ‘I’m not a thief, but even if I were, I wouldn’t write it here.’ Talk about your personality! Say you’re ‘athletic’ or ‘energetic’. That tells your employer you’re good at running around like a blue-arsed fly and completing tasks quickly. Hell, just go all out and write ‘I’m good at running around like a blue-arsed fly and completing tasks quickly’. The shock factor sometimes works. Talk about your sense of humour. Hey, if you’re feeling really confident (also, absolutely make sure you write the word ‘confident’, because that’s a super word for employers), then start your CV with a joke. There’s definitely a fine line between ‘confident’ and ‘arrogant’ though. Remember you don’t have a rapport with the stranger reading your CV for the first time – they can’t see your face, they can’t read things in your voice – so keep things natural and non-intimidating. Don’t write too much about yourself, but don’t make yourself look vapid and boring. Here’s an example of what I would write on a CV about myself now (and don’t just copy it word for word, for crying out loud . . .).
Personal qualities: Outgoing, light-hearted, confident of my ability to put smiles on the faces of everyone I meet. Energetic and dedicated to putting one hundred and ten per cent effort into everything I do. Fast-learner who takes pride in leaving no job unfinished. Hobbies include competitive badminton, cycling and studying global current affairs. Strongest qualities include pride in my consistently positive attitude, cleanliness and a good sense of humour (well, apparently . . .).
Doesn’t that sound better than ‘I’m a hard worker who is punctual and friendly. Hobbies include networking and listening to music’? That’s a good point, by the way – don’t think employers don’t know what ‘networking’ means. It means you tweet. After a while, I was put in charge of handling CVs in the department store café, and we were told to immediately throw away any CVs that didn’t look good enough. I’m not sure that was company policy, but even when we’d say, ‘We’ll keep it on file,’ we most likely didn’t. Make your CV stand out, because it will be skimread before employers decide whether or not to keep it.
Now – am I outgoing, as I wrote in my example CV? Am I energetic? Do I give one hundred and ten per cent effort to everything I do? Do I play ‘competitive badminton’?! Do I fuck! However, I do think I have an okay sense of humour, and I do study ‘global current affairs’ (meaning I have a weird fascination with books and documentaries about North Korea, but imagine writing that?). It’s all in the wording. An employer can’t prove you don’t cycle, or that you’re not energetic, until you’ve already got the job. They don’t know if you leave jobs unfinished or not. They take a chance on you – and if you come across in your CV as someone who is confident enough to lie to their faces about how great you are, the chances are, they’ll believe you.
Of course, if you are all those things, and you are smart, and do have experience, well, this chapter is wasted on you. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get every job you apply for. Rejection can really burn if you let it, because it leaves you with unanswered questions. Why wasn’t I good enough? What did other applicants have that I didn’t? Did I come across badly? Dealing with any rejection can make you feel inadequate, but each rejection is a life lesson. Perhaps you were nervous in the interview, or perhaps there was just someone better suited to the job. That doesn’t mean you’re not worthy of employment, and it doesn’t mean you’re useless – dust yourself off and try again. Tweak your CV every now and then. Try for jobs you weren’t originally aiming for just to earn some more experience. After being rejected a few times, you can start to feel hopeless, but I’m a firm believer in, ‘If you try, you might fail. If you don’t try, you’ll definitely fail.’
Also, if your interviewer asks which place you play badminton at, make it up and don’t return their calls.
It’s Just A Job
From the moment we’re old enough to comprehend what a ‘job’ is, we’re taught to understand that being employed is a sacred, golden opportunity – money is what allows us to live. Money can be exchanged for goods and services! Money is how we become happy. Jobs allow you to make that money. However – it is important that we do not allow ourselves to be tricked into thinking that only by having a job and earning money can we be happy. Of course, I’m not prepared to go on record saying, ‘Jobs suck! Quit your job! Be unemployed on purpose!’ As you know, I was in and out of different jobs right the way up until I was twenty-one, when I was able to earn enough from YouTube to sustain a decent living.
For the entire time I was in professional employment, be it selling shoes, serving fries or waiting tables, I felt fortunate to have a job, and I was absolutely terrifi
ed of being fired. If you’re fired, any future employer will call up your last place of work and find out, right? What if you suddenly can’t find another job and then have to explain why you’ve been out of employment for months? All of these imaginary worst-case scenarios turned me into a complete and utter doormat when it came to being bossed around. My feelings were at their worst when I was working at the department store café for two years. Any time I was asked to cover someone’s shift, I would immediately agree, out of fear of being seen as ‘undependable’ and being fired if I didn’t. I would end up working an hour or two of overtime almost each and every day, often unpaid. I agreed to come in early whenever I was asked, whether it was on a late shift, on days off or on any bank holiday that other colleagues refused to work. Whenever I did something wrong, or snapped at a customer (work in retail – it happens), and was called up for a disciplinary hearing, I was terrified that the store manager (who I felt hated me) would find a way to fire me. I became a miserable, beaten-down wreck. A slave to the wage, a rat in a cage, feeling unable to say no to working six or seven days a week and leaving myself no time to look for another job. Besides, the company had done a good enough job of convincing me that I was lucky to still have a job after being so bad at it, and that I should feel grateful in our fragile economy to be employed. Of course, that was partly true – I wasn’t a model employee – but this gradual brainwashing into believing my life would crumble without this job made me so dependent on it that I would hate waking up in the mornings. Every night, I would come home, change out of my uniform, eat dinner and tell my dad about my day. He would shake his head in despair.
Feel Good 101_The Outsiders' Guide to a Happier Life Page 16