Editorial: NCEA results don’t have to leave you stuck with a couch

While the actual episode of Friends this scene appears in is officially called "The One with the Cop", to many it is known simply as Pivot - a word that doesn't have to mean you are stuck on the stairs with a couch, writes Ilona Hanne.

If there is one word we have all learned - and heard too much of since Covid-19 entered our world - it is pivot.

Before the pandemic, pivot simply made me think of one particular episode of Friends ... you know the one - everyone’s favourite palaeontologist Ross buys a new couch and decides to carry it up to his apartment rather than pay a delivery fee. He enlists the unwilling help of friends Rachel and Chandler and soon the trio find themselves stuck. The couch is too big to move around the turn in the stairs, resulting in Ross yelling “pivot” repetitively.

Now of course, the word pivot brings up a sense of dread, rather than a belly laugh, as we are reminded of the Covid years where we constantly had to pivot - changing direction and method in our work, our study and even how we spent our leisure time (I am fairly sure many episodes of Friends were watched during lockdown).

Long ago before Covid-19 entered our world, before Ross and Rachel ever dated, or were on a break, I was a 7-year-old ballet student. Back then, pivot was a word I hated. “Pivot” - the teacher would call, and while the other tutu-clad ballerinas in the town hall would gracefully turn as one, I would, without fail, turn in the opposite direction. While the other tiny ballerinas’ feet seemingly barely moved as they turned - mine would splay out, moving me away from my allocated space, to the background music of my teacher’s exasperated sigh.

Just like Ross’ couch and that staircase, ballet and I were not a good fit. Fortunately, it turned out that a Brownie group happened to run at the same time as that dreaded ballet class, and by the time I was 8, I had pivoted myself right out of ballet and into Brownies.

Eight-year-old me knew ballet was not my thing (turns out I wasn’t a great Brownie either, but that’s a whole other column) and so changed course and carried on.

NCEA results come out today, and with them, some students may find themselves needing to pivot. If they don’t have the results they were hoping for, they may not be going to the university they had planned on, or may not be taking a subject this year they thought they would.

There can be a lot of pressure on our teens at the best of times, and if their NCEA results aren’t what they had hoped for, they are likely to feel just as stuck as Ross on that staircase.

It’s not just teens and NCEA results, of course, there are plenty of times in our life when we can feel stuck or unable to move forward. The good news is, when we feel stuck we don’t have to end up like Ross - who finished the episode with a sawn-in-half couch and a $4 store credit - if we just remind ourselves how to pivot.

Despite my ballet teacher’s belief to the contrary, a successful pivot doesn’t have to be graceful or smooth, it just has to take you in a new direction. Just like ballet wasn’t my thing, if NCEA results are showing you geography isn’t your thing, that’s okay. Maybe you will never read a map successfully and your planned career as a geologist is out the window, but that doesn’t mean you are stuck, you just have to find your new thing.

So whether your results were all you wanted or not, don’t forget how to pivot - it’s a skill we all need in life at some point, whether it’s a dance move, a career move, or maybe just a couch that needs to be moved.