What do you want to do with your life? Now, that is a question every teenager and young adult hates to be confronted with. While people in their late teens or early 20s are usually searching, seeking options, genuinely confused with the possibilities and would like to have a healthy dialogue on this, this question seems to close the lid on any such discussion. If you’re in this age group, or even a little older, here’s a set of ‘givens’ for you to think about.
The world has changed in several ways during the last two-and-a-half decades. That is approximately the time when your parents were your age.
The possibilities of what one can do to earn a living are immense. The spread, extremely diverse.
The need to do what you love is supreme. Chances that you may get that right are obscure.
The time to make up your mind is flexible, a little flexible.
If it helps, I can let you in on a secret. Your parents and uncles and aunts are as confused. Unfortunately, they have this veil that prevents them from admitting that they don’t have a clue. Even if they have succeeded in their chosen or incidental journey, their worst fears —emanating from examples of friends and cousins who (in their opinion) went wrong —happen to be their guiding light to your career path.
Then again, it is unfair to blame them. If they had a hard beginning; if they studied under a streetlight, it’s difficult for them to let you “be” when they do not see you struggling enough. “When I was 19, I used to cycle all the way to…” You get the picture.
I’d like to offer a methodology – one that enables you to select a career option based on your idea of life, and the way you would like to lead it. This may help you come up with a plan that finds agreement with your parents. Let’s get started!
Step 1: Picture your aspiration, your dream
Picture the life of your dreams. What kind of a lifestyle would you like to lead, five years from now, eight years later, maybe in ten years time? How much would you like to be earning monthly in order to lead such a lifestyle? Which car might you be driving? Where would you like to live? Would you like to travel a lot? How much time would you want to spend working per day, per week?
You only live once! So let us aim for the life that you dream about, your aspirational lifestyle. Begin with the figures. How much money, how much time, in how many years? What will it take to live your dream, your aspirational lifestyle?
Step 2: List your probable career options
Do you like the idea of working at a desk, selling stuff, or insurance, or would you like to research, plan projects, build strategies, make music, paint, write reviews — for new cars or old movies, cook, be a vet, ride horses…? The choices are endless. List down the career options, the choices that can get you the lifestyle you outlined in Step 1. “That sounds easier said than done,” you may say. Then again, as Henry Ford said so well, “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you are right”.
Step 3: Evaluate the options
Evaluate the options you have listed. Remember that these are career choices that will lead you to your desired lifestyle. Each of them is an optional path to your aspirations. If you have only one item on your list, consider yourself very lucky. You know what you want, you must be willing to work very hard towards that goal. Don’t waste any more precious time. Begin pursuing your career option with all the passion at your command. Enjoy the pursuit of excellence in your chosen field.
For the rest of us, let us evaluate our options, giving them a score of 1-10, on three factors:
1. Fun quotient: How much fun are you going to have pursuing this option? (Rank 1 for drudgery, 10 for total happiness)
2. Feasibility : How high are the chances that following this path will lead you to your aspirational choices? Knowing yourself well, how good is the probability that you’ll make it on this journey, that you will go all the way, give it all it takes? (Give yourself a score of 5 for “iffy”, 8 for “pretty certain”)
3. Longevity : Will this option continue to remain exciting and fruitful even after the aspirational period (5, 8 or whatever number of years you have given yourself to get there). (Rank yourself 2, for having to give up this track and begin afresh, 9 for “absolutely, this is what I can build on for the rest of my life”)
Multiply the scores (F x F x L, or Fun x Feasibility x Longevity). The highest product value is your most robust option.
Step 4: Mind-mapping
What will it take to pursue the career option you have selected? Begin by clearly stating the key target statement of your selected option. For instance, achieving Handicap 5 in five years as part of the Indian Polo Association (see detailed example in the Graphic) or being in a mid-management/ team leader position in one of the big five consulting firms within six years. Keeping this goal at the centre, here is a “thought tree”, where each branch indicates a key element or action point that is a prerequisite to your achieving your goal.
Each sub-branch is, in turn, an essential part of attaining the prerequisite. An online tool called “mind-map” is helpful in such an exercise (you may use www.conceptdraw.com). For instance, if your goal is to be an investment banker with one of the top 10, an education at an Ivy League or equivalent, internship at two such firms, and an assignment that proves your mettle would form three such branches. The action points, decisions and resources required to get that education will form the sub-branches.
Once you have a reasonable draft outline ready, it is time to unveil your work of passion to your parents, friends and all other advisers and critics — in fact, to all stakeholders. Listen carefully to what they have to say, take notes, argue, make amendments to your plan wherever you agree. This “buy-in”, even if it’s a reluctant nod, is essential to the process. Once they believe that you have a plan, they will let you be…at least for some time.
‘You only live once!’ I’m grateful to the younger generation for bringing this fact to the notice of their earlier generation. Seriously! Now let us live that “once” with a plan. As a parent, such a plan is all the assurance I need for my kids. I can then be a part of the plan – helping where I can, staying away where I should. Yet, a plan is just a plan. Therefore…
Step 5: Testing your mettle
Let’s test if you are really made of the stuff that your selected option will need. Select one branch of this mind-map. One that is critical (like all others) to the plan, but which can be achieved in a rather short time, say 3-6 months. It could even be a sub-branch.
The idea is to take this up as a test case – to prove to yourself that you have the wherewithal to take on this project. To undertake this journey, on the path of your choosing, the path that is most likely to lead you to your aspirational lifestyle. If you succeed, which I sincerely hope you do, continue on your chosen path. If not, re-visit your options. Either way, live the dream!
PS: This way of thinking through options and arriving at qualified choices may be used whenever we are at a “crossroads”. The methodology applies as much to an adult professional facing a mid-life crisis as it does to a teenager. The quality of the outcome, of course, depends on the quality of inputs and the depth of your thinking process.