For the vast majority of career paths, getting to where you want to be requires a specific balance of qualifications and experience. You start out by studying the subject at length and in depth, in order to then go onto start at an entry-level position and summarily work your way up the ladder. In essence, there are many instances where the more you study and the more you stick with it, the higher you can go with no specific ceiling to the success you might achieve.
Interestingly, however, this is not necessarily the case when it comes to the career path of the nanny. The reason being that while there is indeed a solid and important place for education and experience, there’s really nothing that matters more than certain personality traits and qualities. According to the experts at RockMyBaby in London, you could effectively study and practice for a dozen lifetimes, but if you simply are not the kind of person that’s cut out for the job, you will never become a genuinely great nanny.
It all comes down to the fact that there are certain qualities and personality traits that cannot be studied for or earned with even a lifetime’s hard-fought efforts. Some say you’re either born as the kind of person that can become a great nanny or you aren’t – some qualities you either have or you don’t, it’s as simple as that.
Commitment
For example, if you’re the kind of person that finds it impossible to commit to any given cause for the long term and genuinely give it your all, you’re going to struggle to get very far at all as a nanny. The reason being that when a family recruits for a nanny, they’re looking for someone that’s in the game for the long-haul and isn’t likely to just leave out of the blue. You could lie about your commitment to the cause, but the first time you let a family down and your reputation takes a nose-dive, you’ve pretty much ruined your chances of making it.
Self-assured
Confidence is the kind of thing that can build over time with experience, but self-assurance tends to be the kind of thing you either have or you don’t. It’s so important for any nanny to be very much self-assured and to have courage in their convictions as they will be making hugely important decisions on a regular basis with wide-reaching implications. As such, if you’re the kind that has a habit of procrastinating over every little thing and second-guessing yourself even when you probably know you’re right, chances are this is not the career path for you.
Positive, Optimistic
If you’re the kind of person that finds it impossible to hide your bad moods or tends to be grumpy six mornings out of every seven, it’s safe to say that your career as a nanny will be a brief one…and a dissatisfying one at that. It’s not as if you’re expected to immediately transform into a saint that’s never anything but 100% happy, smiley and bouncing about the place, but at the same time you must be able to come across as a shining beacon of positivity and optimism around the family you work for. After all, what could be more depressing than sharing the home with a nanny who looks as miserable as sin more often than not?
Patience is a Virtue
It’s perfectly possible for anyone wishing to do so to work on their patience and eventually not be quite as snappy as they may once have been. However, the kind of patience a nanny has to have on a daily and indeed hourly basis often goes beyond saintly and into the realms of ridiculousness. It’s a case of being tested to breaking point on a non-stop basis while trying to juggle a million things at once and often with nobody else around to help. As such, if you’re already the kind of person that’s prone to losing patience during the course of normal life, chances are you’d be well and truly out of your element as a nanny.
Independence
And finally, there’s a very big difference between being independent enough to look after your own interests and having the kind of independence it takes to look after the kids, pets and home of another family on a full-time (ish) basis. This takes independence on a whole new level and is once again the kind of thing you either have or you don’t – it cannot be earned or bought at any price.