Do you remember that time in school when you were 17 or 18 and you asked your career guidance teacher, what she/he thought you should do? Was it because you were stumped and hoped they would have some kind of clue.

Did they make the right choice?

Did you make the right choice?

Did you make somebody eles's choice?

I attended a talk last week and the speaker , who is a good friend of mine, was talking about people reaching their full potential. He spoke about the number of people who stop trying to achieve their potential as they feel it is too late. He talked about workplace happiness and the reasons why people leave their jobs.

One of key things that I hear again and again are , people don't leave their job , they leave their manager.

After leaving that night, I thought about this a lot. I thought could people really be this unhappy?

So I decided to check for myself and did a quick poll on Twitter.

I thought this would be useful as my twitter followers (God Bless them) are from all over the world. I asked a few questions and here are the results of the poll.

Now I had no idea my followers were such a miserable bunch of people.

Here is the thing. We don't really know who is happy in their job and who is miserable because those who are unhappy are not really going to be able to speak freely in the workplace. (unless its with that one trusty pal you have a good natter with in your tea break).

Are the stats skewed as all the people who filled out the poll were on Twitter anyway and not sitting beaming in their happy work environments?

Or are there 69% of people just putting up with their job?

If 33% are tolerating their job, are they resigned to the fact that this is it? Life isn't going to get any better?

Now I'm around long enough to know that people with mortgages and kids don't always have the freedom to take off and go backpacking because the job is getting a bit boring. However I do know that there has never been a better time to upskill and try and learn something new. The good news is that a lot of online courses are free and in Ireland the government recently opened up access to retraining through the Springboard Programme to people in the workplace.

A few things that I wasn't taught in school is that there are many options open to us after we leave school. We do not have to have a career for life.

To the 31% who are happy in their jobs, I would love to know what factors keep you engaged and enthusiastic and in love with your job? It would genuinely teach managers how to hang onto their staff and it would help those on the look out to find a more rewarding career.

Here are a list of the happiest jobs in 2017 courtesy of Forbes.

If you are looking to upskill then here are some of the best sites.

1. Udacity.

2. Lynda.com.

3. Alison.com

4. Udemy.com

5. Craftsy Unlimited

In the meantime, hang in there folks. If you want to discuss anything please do leave a comment. If you want to find me online I'm on Twitter @ailieirv or Facebook. Or Subscribe below and leave me your email address. I will not sell it online, I promise.