The Meta-Mistake

At around my 4th or 5th semester of studying Business Administration, I became increasingly absent-minded at lectures, and couldn’t fully concentrate on my studies. I felt like I wasn’t giving it my all. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong. It was an increasing indifference and frustration with the subject. 

Before we continue with the meta-mistake I was guilty of committing, and that would affect the following 10+ years of my life, let’s rewind all the way to the beginning.

I arrived in Germany on a breezy autumn day in 2000. I was hyper enthusiastic and couldn’t wait to start my semester. I was enrolled in Economics at the University of Heidelberg, in one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever lived in. 

For those who aren’t familiar with the German education system, here is a quick summary: Back then there were no Bachelor’s and Master’s programs, and students studying economics, or business administration at a university would graduate with a ‘Diplom’ degree. Internationally, this is equivalent to a Master’s degree. So instead of studying for an undergraduate degree and then getting a Master’s, here the path leads straight to a Master’s degree. The ‘Diplom’ program is earned in two stages. The student must first earn his ‘Vordiplom’ which usually takes 4-5 semesters, and then the ‘Diplom’ topped off with a thesis, which takes anywhere from 5-8 semesters. 

With the high energy and motivation I brought at first, I finished the first stage, the Vordiplom in just 2 semesters, with flying colors. 

I was genuinely interested in learning economics. The initial driver for that was curiosity and excitement about starting something new.

But the real reason why I did so well in so little time was that I wanted to achieve something and prove myself. To whom and to what ends – that wasn’t really clear. I simply enjoyed the process of setting up an ambitious goal and nailing it, more than the subject itself. 

The Vordiplom was done and around that time was the first time that doubt started setting it. What interested me most about economics was learning about the way that things worked. How actions, decisions of different people in the economy influenced one another. I was less engaged with maths and statistical techniques. 

All of this, unfortunately, I was not aware of at that time. Neither did I spend time consciously reviewing what was wrong with my choice of major. It was more of a hunch that I wasn’t in the right field. In my mind at that time, I wanted to study something that had more practical application.

After considering various possibilities, including switching to psychology and even law (fortunately I didn’t go down the law path!), I decided to switch to Business Administration. It was a simple and clean move, as 100% of my Vordiplom courses could be transferred. I only needed to take some additional courses which included an accounting course, and I could switch majors.

I was on my way to earning my Diplom in Business Administration at the University of Mannheim, around 15 minutes away by train from Heidelberg. I was hopeful about my newly chosen major. I wanted to know how businesses worked and had vague dreams of starting my own business one day. 

Plus, the business administration program at this University was ranked top 3, it was a mark of prestige to graduate from the program of that university. Imagine it like graduating with an MBA from Wharton, and then dividing that by a factor of 10 or so. This is not to comment on the quality of the studies, but a remark about the prestige of the institution.

My intention for studying business administration was foggy. But I had set my mind to this and again came up with a plan of how to tackle this challenge, to earn my Diplom degree in 4-5 semesters. 

It ended up taking me 8 semesters instead. 8 long, dreadful semesters. It was a hot mess. I woke up late for lectures, skipped some classes. Juggling preparing for exams with 2 part-time jobs, one at the university administration and one at a restaurant. Semester breaks were – hold on to your seat! – 2-2.5 months after each semester. Constantly working combined with the non-existent tuition fee at that time enabled me to stay student debt-free and debt-free in general.

Exhaustion didn’t have anything to do with the enormous amount of time I needed to finish my studies. It was a lack of purpose and direction that resulted in slow, ineffective, disorganized movements.

On top of the mandatory courses everyone had to take, I chose these courses that formed the core of my studies: Finance and Banking, Industrial Controlling, and International Management. The first 2 subjects were known to be among the most challenging ones, while the latter one was what I would call an ‘easy’ subject. International Management was a course one could get an A for with almost no studying (also without really understanding it!). But Finance and Banking, and Controlling were, at least for me, subjects that even after countless hours of studying I still couldn’t get a firm hold of. 

Ironically, the more difficult it got, the more I attached myself to these courses. I couldn’t accept that I wasn’t stellar at them. But over the semesters my grades declined. I couldn’t or wouldn’t concentrate. I felt like a stranger in these classes, as though I didn’t belong there. 

The reason for this turn in events, from high achievement and enthusiasm to demotivation, listlessness, and average grades at the best, was a lack of interest. As difficult as these subjects were, it was not rocket science. 

But it was too late to re-route again. By the time I felt really desperate it was around the 4th or 5th semester of my studies. I had invested so much time and energy in this. In addition to that, I was in a long-distance relationship that had grown more toxic over time. I just wanted to drag myself to the end of my studies as quickly as possible. 

And that took another 4 long semesters. It was a phase that killed a part of my soul. I was in my early 20s, and it felt like for the first time a big chunk of naivety was removed from me. It was a  transition from ‘I can do everything, this is so exciting and awesome’ to ‘everything sucks’. 

The relief came in the 7th-8th semester when I started working on my thesis in International Management. At this point, I felt slightly revived again. 

I was excited to start something new. Not only that, but I also had full freedom to choose what my thesis was going to be about. Instead of following the curriculum, I could freely explore what I wanted to research and write about. 

And I excelled once again. My thesis for which I got a 1.3, an A+ in North American grades. This, combined with my good grades from the International Management part of my studies, brought my drowning GPA up to a solid ‘gut’. Which means ‘good’ in English, equivalent to a ‘B’. At that time, this was not at all what I expected.

This fact turned out to be so insignificant, as during my career there was not one time where this mattered. 

Instead, my biggest learnings from studying at university were structured thinking, researching, starting, planning, and completing things. 

Anyways, this chapter of my life was finally, with a big gasp, completed.

After a short, half-year intermezzo working in project management at SAP, I returned to Indonesia for private reasons. A story that perhaps I’ll tell in a future post.

Back in Indonesia, I was looking for my first permanent, full-time job. At this point, I was quite numb to what I really wanted and what I was interested in. 

For simplicity, my mind had just fixated itself on finding a job at a bank or some other financial institution. 

That’s the workings of the subconscious mind. 

Napoleon Hill said  “…the subconscious mind [resembles] a fertile garden spot, in which weeds will grow in abundance, if the seeds of more desirable crops are not sown therein.

I had not sown anything I truly desired in my mind. I had not found and decided what I wanted to do with my career and life so that by default, the easiest and most practical step of ‘working in banking or finance’ entered my mind.

Without much thought, I followed that instruction. I accepted that goal as a given and didn’t question it much. Despite it being so clear during my studies that I was not in the right ballpark.

I took on that new challenge. The vision of working in banking enticed me. The thought of starting something new again was enough to motivate me. And it worked out. My first full-time permanent job was as a Manager in Retail Banking at the world’s largest global bank. I didn’t go through the admin or teller route, but rather, straight into management.

This was, however, only a limited success story.

If you have been watching my youtube video, you might know that throughout my banking career I became unhappier and more unfulfilled by the day, culminating in my resignation after the 5th year.

Serious reflection and reviewing began around that time. A habit that stuck to me until now. 

And it was just around a year ago that I pulled an important lesson for myself, and that I coined as the ‘meta-mistake’. Hopefully, this will be useful to you as well! 

Avoid making this meta-mistake: Repeating the same mistake again.

My mistake was, that first, after realizing that economics was not for me, I shifted into what was most convenient and most sparkly, which was business administration, instead of getting to the bottom of what I really wanted, 

If you are studying at the moment, and you realize that you have strong reasons for changing majors, then go for it!

The second mistake was, that after realizing that business administration was not what I thought it would be, I stuck to it, I doubled down and picked the most difficult subjects for all the wrong reasons. All the while the path to changing majors was wide open.

If you are too far in your process and cannot bear the thought of quitting or changing majors, be flexible about what to do during your studies and how to make the best of it. Don’t make it harder on yourself and don’t overvalue the importance of your degree.

The third mistake was, that after graduating, I was under the false assumption that I had to work in a field that matched my specialization, meaning either banking and finance or controlling. That plus a combination of all the wrong reasons, including prestige and sparkles.

It didn’t enter my thought for a moment, that despite having specialized in banking and finance, controlling, and international management, I could easily have entered other industries and areas of a company. I could have even worked on a personal project or start a business.

Even if you’ve spent years to earn a  degree (you don’t care about), don’t think that you have to continue down that road. There are countless cases where people end up working in a field that does not match their study major. 

But what do all these mistakes have in common? 

The meta-mistake is to continue heading down the wrong path even though you know something is wrong. Not to take a time-out and seriously review in-depth what you like and dislike, what ‘sparks joy’ in the vocabulary of Marie Kondo, and what fills you with dread. Not stopping the run and reroute, but instead going on auto-pilot. 

Making the same mistake of not thinking enough. 

So, what is the antidote to this?

The antidote is doing regular, honest, and in-depth self-reviews.

To avoid this meta-mistake, make it a habit to routinely review where you’re at. Whether or not you’re on track to achieving it. 

And especially if you are repeating any past mistakes. 

If you have been repeating the same kind of mistakes you will recognize a pattern. You need to break that pattern if you want to change your career and your life. 

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