In search of the perfect career path

(Posted by me in my company's internal blog)

As a child who was just 4 or 5 years, I remember one of my relatives asking me “What do you want to become when you grow big?”. I thought for a short while and said “A teacher!”. Most girls would have given this answer, not only in those days, but even now. Many of us get fascinated by our teachers. After all doctors and teachers are the first professionals we meet in our lives.

And then when I was about 10, someone asked me the same question. And this time I said “IAS”. Thankfully, no one asked me to expand it! In fact, I did not know that it had an expansion. I thought it to be an English word like “teacher”. So, where did I pick it up from? My grandpa was mentioning to my Mom some days back, looking at my horoscope, that I will become an IAS one day. I caught on to that. In those days, about 2-3 decades back, IAS was a great profession. It is even today but not for the political influence on the role and hence the dilution of the role itself.

Years rolled by… many things in life were decided by my parents and my elder sister, for me or on my behalf. Because they felt I was too ignorant to make serious decisions in life. I went ahead and did science & engineering as per their wishes. All was well until this point! I had others deciding for me. Whatever was dumped on me, I tried hard to show results. Eventually I did well making the decision-makers feel that they did the right thing by getting me to pursue a path of their choice/suggestion.

Thus I passed out successfully and then took up a sales job. I instantly fell in love with the job. It was good to see people get convinced with the products you are campaigning for and shell out their precious money to buy it. So I thought…this is it! “Sales” is my calling. Until….

…a colleague of mine wondered why I would sell timeshares after graduating from a premier Engineering institute! She insisted that  I look out for some good opportunity. And that I need not have worked hard on Engineering to sell timeshares. A normal BA would have been sufficient. I saw the point.

So looked out and found a good opportunity. It was one of the first IT companies in Chennai. They offered me a job and I felt may be this is where I ought to be. For the next 21 years, there has been no looking back! And I think I am doing reasonably well. Now is this what I was cut out for? I don’t know. But what happened to my aspirations of becoming a teacher and an IAS and of course my sales calling?

They still remain. The teacher in me comes out when I have to train my teams or coach my managers. The administrator in me shows up when I have to make some key decisions or put forth a strong case with my management. The salesman (woman?) is there all the time marketing myself to my teams, managers, customers and all relevant stakeholders.

Am I happy? Of course! After all happiness is a state of one’s mind and that is something no one can give you from outside. It has to come from within.

Career or Job…I have always asked myself. And throughout the answer has been career with a big C! The difference…it is ultimately the passion that makes it a career or the lack of it which makes it just a job.

I have stopped believing in creating our own career paths. We just tread on what we were created to tread on. But the policy has always been “do your best”. That passion has made the difference.

So…don’t worry about your career path. Just do your work today very well and do it better than what you did yesterday! That will pave the path to success! This in turn will ensure you have a career path.