After university, I trained as an accountant. But while I qualified and earned those letters after my name, I quickly realised that an accountant I am not. Not deep down where it matters.

Looking back, my decision to dive into the world of numbers, debits, credits and balance sheets still leaves me utterly bemused. Accountants like predictable, consistent, orderly things. They like formulas. And with my core strength being creativity, my loathing of routine, and my craving for adventure, I couldn’t have chosen a career path less suited to who I really am. But choose it I did.

As I progressed along that path, I figured I’d made my bed and now I was just going to have to lie in it, uncomfortable as it was. I’d chosen to be an accountant, this was my lot in life. So I decided that if I was going to live out this ‘lot’, I needed what I did and who I am to align. To get there, I thought I needed to fall in love with formulas. I needed to make life predictable. I needed to embrace routine.

So I created formulas for everything. My life became a spreadsheet of increasing complexity. Formula by formula, I tried to reach that place where my work and my identity would finally click. In my mind it was simple: if I apply enough formulas to my life, surely there will come a point when I like them?

But that point never came. No matter how much formula-making and formula-following I did, I never grew to like them. I had the process backwards: I was trying to make myself become what I did rather than making what I did line up with who I am. And trying to shoe-horn who you are into what you do, when the two don’t naturally align, always ends badly.

Eventually, I accepted defeat. I admitted that formulas and I were never destined to like each other much, and no amount of grit would convince me otherwise. Through what was, at the time, a traumatic twist of events, I left accountancy and found myself with an opportunity to forge a new path. I seized that chance and, perhaps for the first time, I stopped trying to make life predictable and embraced the chaos and creativity I had always been seeking.

However, as time passed, without even realising it, I began to fall back into the formula trap. As I pushed deeper into my adventure of becoming who I really was, signing up for course after course and reading book after book, I was secretly hunting for that silver bullet – the magic potion that would catapult things to the next level.

And as I tried to implement every “guaranteed” step to success I was learning – to apply every formula I was offered – I came to realise that in the messy, chaotic world of becoming the person you really are, rigid formulas simply don’t work. Because life is not a formula.

But here’s the thing – the fact that life isn’t a formula doesn’t mean those courses and books can’t help you. They absolutely can.

It’s all about context and application. You are unique, and your life is your own, so no one-size-fits-all approach will ever be the golden ticket to where you want to go. But while each of those formulas, tips and techniques may not offer you a complete solution, they do offer golden nuggets. Your job is, as the saying goes, to eat the meat and spit out the bones.

You do that by examining every formula you’ve tried, whether it worked or not. Look at every element and ask yourself: What fits with my values, and what doesn’t? What plays to my strengths? What feels right in my gut? What reinforces my authenticity? Then hold onto what fits and let go of what doesn’t.

I can’t emphasise enough how valuable this exercise is. Nothing you learn in life is ever wasted if you choose to look within it and find the value. I apply this principle in my own journey. I help coaching clients harness this power in their adventures. I work with business owners to shape visions and strategies that embrace this principle.

Don’t cast aside your past experiences – use them. Learn from them. Take what moves you forward, and leave behind all that holds you back.