Time Traveller, Astronaut, Opera Singer, Hockey Announcer, Graphic Designer.

What do all the jobs on this list have in common? These are all the jobs I’ve dreamed of having in a world where anyone can be anything and there are no limits on where you can take your career. It’s also a list of jobs I thought were impossible for me, a normal person, to do. 

In high school, I was obsessed with typography and spent my free time playing around on Photoshop and Illustrator. I watched a documentary on the typeface Helvetica repeatedly. Graphic design was the natural career choice, but because I thought it was such a cool job, I believed it was completely unattainable for me. I couldn’t believe that I could become a graphic designer any more than I believed I could bend the laws of physics to achieve my childhood dream of time travel. 

I evaluated career choices I thought were more practical and picked teaching. I had experience working with children in preschools and summer camps, and I loved the idea of being able to teach through art and music to still have a creative outlet.

Pretty much immediately, I knew I had to get out of teaching. I was working in arts-based education, but it still wasn’t enough. I wanted to be doing art all day, not teach through it. A career is 80,000 hours long. That’s a lot of hours to spend knowing you’ve settled on your second choice.

After three years in teaching, I started to seriously consider what else I could do instead. I thought of a poster my sister had hanging in her room when I was growing up.

I figured even if I couldn’t reach my ultimate design dream (doing print design at a small agency with high-profile clients), I would still be able to do something I liked better than teaching. I took the shot and went to design school. 

Lo and behold, I got a job straight out of the program, and my lifelong belief that I would never find work as a full-time graphic designer fell away. After hearing about the quality of print design Initiate was creating, I set up a meeting to ask more about the agency.  I was hired! 

I am lucky enough to be able to say that I have achieved my dream job. If you’re reading this, this is your sign to take the leap and follow your dreams. You never know, you might just hit the moon. 

Explore available career opportunities at Initiate Marketing.