what’s the one piece of career advice that changed your life?
FAQ #2: it's not hard to find good advice. what's hard is figuring out what advice is good for you.
FAQ: noun | a list of questions and answers relating to a particular subject.
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Dear Emily,
Firstly, I want to say one writer to another that I love your work and posts. I’m putting an article together for BuzzFeed, which is a collection of advice that 'changed peoples lives' and wondered if you would like to contribute?
All I need is one piece of advice that has quite simply changed your life.
Best,
Looking for life-changing advice
Dear looking for life-changing advice,
I’ve been pretty fortunate to have had a lot of truly wonderful advice given to me throughout my career – from mentors, friends and family members. So much of that advice has undoubtedly shaped how I show up for myself and for others today. But the trouble with advice is that everyone has it. It’s not actually that hard to get advice, and it’s also not actually that hard to find good advice, either. What’s hard is choosing to follow the advice that’s good for you. You should choose to do the right things for the right reasons – in the right way for you. And that means following the advice that helps you to make good decisions, whilst allowing you to stay true to who you are and what matters to you.
I can’t even remember where or how I stumbled across this life-changing advice. I really wish I could, because it would be so nice to credit it to a person and tell a great story about them. But alas, I can’t remember and it’s even possible that this wasn’t even direct advice given to me, but rather a realisation that hit me after a sequence of missteps, mistakes and misplaced trust in managers and peers that left me reeling. However, since unearthing this advice and realising just how important it is, it is now something that I reiterate to my team, to mentees, friends and even my husband, too.
My advice is less of a piece of advice, and more of a reminder. And it’s that you alone are the only person responsible for your career. Your success, in whatever form that takes, is your responsibility, and the faster you accept this – the faster you’ll get to where you want to be. This means doing the work. It means honing your skills. Asking the questions. Doing the digging. Arming yourself with the information you need, to figure out whether you’re being paid fairly, and valued properly.
It means advocating for yourself, too – and not just in annual reviews. Your success at work isn’t just about what you do, but about what people know you do. This isn’t about being that performative person who constantly sends uneccessary emails and messages to make sure everyone thinks they look good. But it is about being proactive with what you share. Your achievements. Your impact. Your wins. Your learnings. Your growth. Your progression. I keep all of mine in a doc called ‘Greatest Hits’ – it’s screenshots, messages, anecdotes and concrete examples of when I did a great job at something. If I’m ever feeling like I’m not good enough or frustrated, I look back through the doc to remind myself of how far I’ve come.
And as well as all of this being about what you do and what people know you do – it’s also about how you do it, too. People will always remember what you were like to work with, and more often than not, being an all-round good egg really does go a long way.
In the best case scenario, you may luck out with a wonderful boss who advocates for you, resolves salary disparities to make sure everyone around you is paid fairly and puts you forward for the opportunities that’ll allow you to shine. But even then, it’s not your boss’s job to know your path and to make sure you’re always on it. That’s their job for them, and it’s your job for you.
I hope that answers your question.
The full BuzzFeed article, featuring career advice from nine other people, was published on Tuesday 25th March 2025. You can read it here.
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“Don’t stop yourself from getting something because you think they’re not gonna give it to you.” This is valuable for everything. Apply for the job you may or may not be good enough for. Send the text to the magazine. Place a kofi link at the end of your newsletter and let people decide if they think you’re worth supporting. Basically give people a chance to tell you yes before you decide they’re gonna say no (they can’t say yes to something they don’t know about).
I remember working at Thinkbox and the PR manager said - figure out who you want to be and that set me up to focus on marketing vs trying to do too many things. I found that to be a helpful way to be directive about my career. Now i'm exploring other areas of creativity but at 25 the single minded approach really helped me