Careers are like Christmas trees

And baubles are our career history

A couple of weekends ago, I went to Blenheim Palace - it’s a big country estate in Oxfordshire. There’s Christmas EVERYWHERE at Blenheim, including a lot of trees.

And as I filmed them for Instagram (because, of course), I realised there was an analogy playing right into my hands.

The post I wrote on insta was about how we are like Christmas trees - the body inspo analogy that trees are all shapes and sizes.

But then something else came to mind - and that’s how our careers are like Christmas trees.

Some trees are huge, covered in lights. The big, bright, everyone-can-see-them types.

Born to be big and showy-offy, and happily so.

Others are big, but they’re not so on-show. The ones inside the palace, for example. Like those people who are hugely successful but don’t ever shout about it on social media. Or the people who do the heavy lifting without demanding praise or reward.

Then there are the small, unusual ones. The kitsch ones, the ones with unusual ornaments. You see, if our career at a certain point is a Christmas tree, that’s one thing. But our career history is the decorations.

It might be you’ve had one job for most of your life - the same ornaments, the same trusty lights that you look after, year after year. You are happy with this and you might add to it (AKA promotion).

Or you might have so many different baubles that it’s hard to see where they all match or might have come from. The portfolio career, where you’ve dabbled in ‘this and that’, made some changes, done different things.

Somehow, they all come together ok.

Because this is your tree, nobody else’s.

It’s easy to compare, though. As I wrote in my last Substack, I often feel like everyone else is doing better.

If my tree is a certain way, then I look at a flashier, bigger, or more ‘stylish’ tree and think ‘should mine look like that?’

In my office at home, I have a tree and it’s got a huge range of baubles on it. Some are personal (one says ‘Auntie’) and others have to do with work - some are cacti, for example, which ties in with my previous life running a platform for freelancers called Freelance Feels.

There is even a slice of bacon, with glitter, from a friend.

The tree, for me, says ‘all are welcome’ and ‘anything goes’., I’m open to baubles, and always open to change. That’s how I thrive.

How about you?