If there’s an opportunity for the British public to gather around the television, and show their support for a contestant battling it out for a once in a lifetime opportunity, you can be sure that the British public gather and vicariously enjoy the experiences of the contestants.

Over the years, TV has given us any number of formats in which the best of amateurs compete to become the best baker/singer or landscape artist of the year. Now, the BBC has taken the Sunday night TV contest to a new level, with Astronauts, in which twelve professionals at the top of their individual fields, from sport to science, complete a series of challenges in order to gain the backing of International Space Station Commander Thomas Hadfield in NASA’s to become an astronaut.

The show demonstrates, not only to Hadfield and the show’s viewers, but to the contestants themselves what their strengths and their limits are. The tasks set for the contestants tested various skillsets, from physical ability to intelligence to computer literacy. Where some contestants thrived, others found that they were limited, and the other way round. Merritt Moore, an Oxford physicist and ballerina gave a recent interview in The Telegraph in which she stated that she struggled in a bleep test, because sprinting was not something she was used to, despite her peak fitness in ballet. On the other hand, her experience with condensed matter which involved working to nanometer precision, led her to successfully complete the challenge in which she had to draw her own blood.

What all these contestants have in common is that they are being pushed to their limits, and learning whether these are in reality their actual limits, or if they are capable of more than they knew. For many of the contestants, they reach their limits, and sadly this prevents them becoming an astronaut, and their journey on the show ends. For others however, they are learning to break their own boundaries as they reach for their goal, and gain the prize of Hadfield’s support in their mission to become an astronaut.

In perhaps slightly less intense situations than being trapped in a claustrophobic sphere for twenty minutes, we challenge ourselves on a regular basis to break down the limits we place on ourselves in our careers, and see what we are capable of. In your careers, as we progress do you unlock your own potential, as you travel towards, your career goals.

All be it the lyrics of the David Bowie song allude to something different, here at ABPM, we are on hand to provide you with the means and tools to find out what your career goals are and we endeavour to advise and guide. At a simplistic level by securing your next role but meaningfully we hope it aligns to your career plans – as ambitious or modest as they may be.

Rej Abraham – Managing Director