13/08/2026
If you've opened your A-Level results today and still have absolutely NO idea what you want to do with your life, please read this...
At school, I definitely wasn't sitting there with a five-year business plan thinking, βOne day I'll own a marketing business.β I went to sixth form and chose subjects I actually enjoyed, including sport and media, then went on to the Fashion Retail Academy to study a Level 4 Diploma in Fashion Retail with Marketing & Business. At the same time, I was working my first job at Topshop, where I eventually worked my way up to Team Leader and was lucky enough to have some great bosses along the way.
From there, life took me somewhere completely different. I started working at GoSkydive, realised I could use what I'd learnt in media to edit skydive videos, started getting involved with the marketing and spent nearly seven years there learning SO much. Eventually, all those seemingly random bits of experience came together and, at 26, I started Jolly Peach Marketing. π
Did I have any idea that was where I was heading when I opened my results? Absolutely not. π
So if all your friends are heading off to university and you don't want to go, you don't have to. If you DO want to go, amazing. If you've got your dream course lined up, brilliant. And if your current plan is βenjoy the summer and figure it out laterβ, that's okay too.
You don't need to study business to eventually start one. You don't need to have your dream career picked at 18. And you definitely don't need to follow the same path as your school friends just because theirs looks more figured out than yours.
I think you get so much from being willing to try things, work hard, learn as you go and follow the things you genuinely enjoy. One job can lead to another, you can discover something you're surprisingly good at and suddenly you're heading in a direction you never could have planned.
Results day can make everything feel VERY final when you're in the middle of it, but it really isn't.
Enjoy your summer. Try things. Travel if you're able to. Meet new people. Follow what you enjoy. Change your mind if you want to. And don't panic if you haven't got a clue yet.
Your path doesn't have to look like anyone else's. Please just do you. π