My career pathways: How career changes impacted my life?

I have worked many jobs throughout my lifetime.
When I was a student, I visited a career counselor. I took some quizzes and answered questions to evaluate my personality, aptitudes, and interests, and to find the most suitable career goals for the future.
Nonetheless, my work life experiences were numerous.

I will explain how and why my personal job experiences were so varied.
When I came to Canada in 1999, I worked in a store, the night shifts as a merchandise assistant.
Within time, it became physically hard for me to unpack the boxes of products and to place products on the shelves, especially heavier products like microwaves and vacuum cleaners.
I started to be skinny and anemic.

After 2 years, I decided to go to the University and I graduated in 2011 ( Bachelor in Social Sciences).
As I am a hard-of-hearing person, I had the services of the transcriptionists who taped the courses for me. Even if it was hard, I got my diploma.

After that, it took me almost 2 years to find a new job, and I worked as an administrative assistant in a bereavement center. Unfortunately, this job was not a permanent job, but a contractual one. This was a great job, and the most stressful part for me was answering the phone when I was alone, as I am a hard-of-hearing person.

After a couple of months, I changed jobs once more as my contract ended.
Within the time, I was promoted to better positions, but as the tasks were harder and harder, I was more anxious than ever. And it was even harder when I lost my dad.

During the pandemic, my anxiety was unbearable, and working from home as a hard-of-hearing person and having harder and newer tasks to learn, I couldn't stand it anymore, and I quit that job even if the team was great.

With time, I just realised that it was my anxiety because the pandemic stressed me a lot. Solutions were offered to me, but I made the wrong decision, which I regretted later.

Then, I found another job as an assembler. I was happy there as there were a lot of great colleagues. The job was easy, and I was fast and productive.

But I started to feel anxious again, and I had to change the job once more.
As I have a daughter with a lot of allergies, I had a desire for a career with higher salary, so that I could provide a better future for my daughter.

This job was also a contractual one. After a while, I started to feel anxious, like in the previous job

Then I realised that over time, regular jobs were more and more stressful for me. As a hard-of-hearing person, I read lips, I have hearing aids, and communication is often hard. Once, I tried to learn the sign language, but I forgot easily what I learnt, as I was busy with family and work, and I was a more loner type of person.

My latest job ended in December last year, while I was in the hospital. I had anemia and trouble of anxiety.

Two greatest lessons I gained from my past work experiences are following:

- My overall health is more important than work, because only when I take care of myself I can work better.

I realised that I need to know my limits better and try not to overwork only because I need to prove myself more than someone else, just because I have limitations. By my personal experience, having so many jobs during my lifetime wasn't always beneficial for my health, even if it was enriching.

Overall, I had good and bad work experiences.

-Empowering and resilience are powerful abilities to foster throughout studies and work.

When work life was hardest, I was doing some beneficial things to find my inner strength.

I passed time with my family, I was exploring nature, and I watched movies.

In today's world, everything is changing so fast, and even jobs and careers.
Also, the ways in which the professionals are tailoring our resumes have changed over time, to be more comprehensive and more adapted to today's reality and needs.

The last six months, I was educating myself as I had a desire to learn about the creator economy.

As everyday, there is a lot to learn about this, I will share my insights and feelings with you, and the main focus will be on personal branding.