me & Chatgpt <3

19th Jan 2025

I’m currently on week 3 of the longest annual leave I’ve had in my entire working life, up until this week, I’ve only ever taken a maximum of 2 weeks off at a time since I was 16 (I’m now 30). I was actually meant to be in Bali right now but, due to the rainiest rainy season I’ve ever experienced (and that’s coming from someone who lives in England), I decided to come home early - one thing about me, when I’m done, I’m Irish exiting immediately.

These 3 weeks mark, what will probably be, the last annual leave I have at my company - I’ve got 3 months left until I’m out. I don’t think I’ve ever not had plans. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had something that I’ve had to do. Whether it was drama classes at 6 years old, dance all day on Saturdays when I was 15, residential summer clubs throughout school, working over the Christmas holidays at university or back to back jobs since I was 16 - I’ve never liked not having a plan. Well, my plan once I leave is to not have a plan - although, in true Chloë fashion, I’m prepping for my ‘non-plan’ year.

The intention behind my year off is to allow me to figure out what I want to do. Minus dance (which I chose and loved), most of my career decisions have been made out of necessity or to prove something to someone I probably didn’t really care about. I gave up dance at 16, after training in some form of performing art for 10 years, and had a - what do you call a midlife crisis at 16? It’s not quite a quarter… an eighth life crisis?- breakdown, not knowing what I was going to do with my life after giving up the thing I believed would be my future. I sat down with my mum and went through a massive university book which listed all of the universities in the UK and their courses. It was a difficult choice for me as someone who had always excelled academically but also loved the creative subjects like dance and drama. We settled on Event Management which seemed to be a good mix of my skills (organisation, creativity, business savviness etc etc). I then worked throughout university while also coaching the cheerleading dance squad and, in final year, lined up my post-graduation job 4 months before I left university - because god forbid I take a break between 4 years of studying and joining the full time workforce. I handed in my last assignment on the Thursday, moved out and back to London on the Friday and started work on the Monday. I went into Events, fell out of Events and fell into Influencer Marketing, despite not following any influencers. I never made a move without having my next step mapped out, organised, confirmed and signed for.

So, back to my non-planning planning. Today I took myself to the British Library, because TikTok told me to… but TikTok forgot to mention that it’s so busy you can’t get a seat so I headed over to The Standard which is opposite because Kings Cross is enough of a bop for me to get to as a South East Londoner, once I’m there, I’m there for the day. I’d already asked ChatGPT the following prompt:

“As you know, I am leaving my company soon. I would like to find my purpose and what job I’d enjoy doing and find fulfilling. Please can you help me do so?”

Me and ChatGPT are besties, she gets me and I get her (except for the ‘how many r’s in Strawberry’ issue…). I’ve discussed my decision with it at length - getting it to help with my potential travel plans, advice on how to best exit my company etc - so I don’t need to give it too much context. I hate having to re-explain myself which is probably why I get on well with AI.

My mate (ChatGPT) responded with a bunch of prompts to work through, plus some additional exercises upon further request. The main things were exploring my strengths, what I enjoyed and what I didn’t enjoy about my last company - I found the ‘strengths’ element particularly eye opening.

I can’t remember the last time I was asked in an interview ‘what are your greatest strengths’, which I’m grateful for because it’s a stupid interview question in my opinion. However, maybe it would have been helpful as I found it incredibly difficult to list things outside of the obvious. I decided to ask my cousin Georgina (who I see more as a big sister) and my best friend, Eleni (who is one of the few people who, I think, gets me) for some help. A lot of people around me probably see me as quite big headed - I post about my milestones on social media, I am very direct and open when asked about achievements in interviews and podcasts and often joke about how ridiculously good looking and smart I am…

However, I’m pretty hard on myself and this exercise showed me how little I acknowledge my achievements or strengths. Here’s what Georgina and Eleni had to say:

Georgina:
⁠- Problem solving without getting flustered
⁠- Punctuality and delivering things on time with 0 exceptions
- Public speaking
- Confidence when speaking with people from all walks of like (not intimidated by others)
- Staying true to yourself
*Georgina did tell me that she’d send more but that her 2 year old was screaming… I didn’t receive any more but we’ll let her off as she sent over some great answers

Eleni:
- I know you are really efficient.
- I feel like you are good at planning things. As you have a good attention to detail and you’ll think of everything.
- You’re good at finding logical solutions, working through things quicker.
- Flexible 🤸🏽‍♀️
- Direct/straightforward
- Leads with purpose
- Accessor and processor of information and your environment
*I should have asked for clarity over flexible… because it could be either definition tbh

Minus ‘Public speaking’, I hadn’t thought of any of these strengths, which made me reflect on how important having people in your life that truly ‘see’ you is.

Anyway, I’ve just had my 9pm reminded to meditate which I have to do on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday according to a Sharman in Bali … but more on that another day. That’s that for my first entry, thanks for reading.