When I left school, I decided to go into hotel management rather than apply to university. I enjoyed the work and building up the business. Yet, as time went on, it became more and more obvious that I had made the wrong decision. I realised that the job was unlikely to fulfil my entrepreneurial dream of “making a difference” and that I had made a mistake.

With hindsight, I stayed on longer than I should have, but eventually I found the courage to hand in my notice and went on to study maths at university.

After graduating, I clocked up yet another career mistake. At an interview for a job with a major company using computer-aided command systems, I learned that I would be working on a single component and that, once I had “done my bit”, I would have to hand over to someone else. I confidently told them I was “absolutely fine” with that.

Yet things did not work out that way. Once in the job, I soon realised that I am what you might call a “starter and a finisher”. I made a mistake thinking that I could be involved in one small part of a process and not have anything to do with the end product. That simply wasn’t for me.

Oscar Wilde had it about right when he said: ‘Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes’

For a long time, the thought of wasting all that precious time jarred. Yet, 30 years on, I see that I was actually missing the point. I think Oscar Wilde had it about right when he said: “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

My hotel job helped me to learn how to build connections with other people; to develop multitasking skills (on a typical day, a hotel manager will have to handle multiple responsibilities simultaneously); and to be flexible (as a hospitality manager you must be ready to switch gears at a moment’s notice as different situations arise).

Meanwhile, my job in industry helped me to understand that working on just one small aspect of an eventual product did not suit me at all. I now appreciate that learning anything new will naturally involve making a few mistakes along the way and this is not something to be feared.

A new start

Many students come to us because they are looking for a new direction. Some may have been railroaded into a stereotypical career path that does not suit them and feel a bit stuck. Others may have limited their ambitions because they listened to people who were not in the best position to give them advice.

It is important to understand that young people develop at different rates and that someone assessed at the age of 11 can be quite different from that same person at 16. To counter this, I urge students to write down what they want to achieve and then, next to it, to write what they have been told they can achieve, and see if the two match. If not, they should maybe start thinking about making some changes.

Meanwhile, some of our students enrol on a course, then realise it is not right for them and take up another subject. I have a lot of time for them. If you have the courage to admit something is not right for you, there is always a solution. It is never too late to start or to change direction. Likewise, it is important not to fall into the trap of thinking that there is only one way of achieving your ambitions.

Some students may choose to take a vocational path, while others will arrive at the same destination via an academic route. Learning is about reaching a destination. In making mistakes we discover more about ourselves, about our limits, about our capabilities, about what we can and cannot do.

Dr Paul Phillips is principal of Weston College in Somerset