Find your dream career first

I was talking to a prospective candidate today who wanted to find out the options about studying abroad. After talking for a few minutes, I realized that he was going on the same route I ask students not to. He was brainstorming what course to do and what major to go after and whether his profile is strong for it or not but not once did he mention what is that he wants to become in life. What is his dream career profile?

What’s the point?

You don’t pave the path to your destination and discuss if the path should be covered by marble or grass without knowing your destination first. If you just start paving the path in any direction, you may have a good path that leads to nowhere. The point is you don’t decide the path first. You decide what is your destination first and for that I again plead you to INTROSPECT. Once you know what it is that will make you happy, you figure out what path will take you there. Simple, no?

So, I asked the student to do some introspection and then we can figure out how to reach there. This post is not to find fault with anyone’s thinking but just to drill down the importance of introspection. Most of us Indians think like that and I hope I can encourage students to not fall into that trap. You will be amazed at how easier it is to reach your goal once you have defined it.

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Introspection is the key to happy money

There is a big problem with Indian society – they interfere too much in a child’s life. The decision of what a child should become professionally is unfortunately decided mostly by parents and not the child himself.

The bigger problem is that parents’ decisions are driven by social norms.

Therefore, they will try to coerce their children into becoming socially acceptable professionals like engineers, doctors, lawyers, CAs instead of something which the child would enjoy more.

I encourage our student readers to go for a profession they would enjoy. As someone has said, you should be doing what you do when your mind wanders off studies or work. Understanding what is it that you like is INTROSPECTION.

  • Do you love socializing and get people excited about something – you could be a great sales person or a HR manager!
  • Did you love assembling PCs for your friends and families? – Great, get into hardware consultations.
  • Do you want to play games all the time – why not be a game engineer?

That’s very simplistic but I hope you get the drift. Find out what excites you and you shall never have to work a boring job again.

It is never too early to introspect. It is ideally done before Class XI but even if you do it before joining college, it’s ok. Forget that, it is even beneficial to do this while you are in college because you still have time to choose your first job.

Lack of exposure in our schools and colleges has aggravated this problem many fold and I see students following herd mentality instead of listening to their inner voices. I have covered this topic more extensively in this article-

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Once you can do a thorough introspection, you can figure a career path that will keep you inspired. We cover this in our career counseling service as well as help incoming Grad Students get more clarity on what career to pursue in Grad School.

I don’t want to earn my living, I want to live

Oscar Wilde

Now, we are not blessed with automatic means of survival and livelihood, so we do need to do some work. But work doesn’t have to feel like ‘work’, you can enjoy what you do. So, find out what is it that you will enjoy doing 🙂

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