Career- our Life Carrier

CAREER- OUR LIFE CARRIER

If we consider the active life of any normal human being say 60 years, more than two thirds of it is spent entirely on the career. With career covering a major part of an individual’s life, a very important thing to think is

•   Are we living our career?
•   Is our career guiding our life? or
•   Is our life guiding our career?

An alarming fact from collected statistics’ is that most of the people prefer to stay in the same field / job irrespective of their areas of interest/fields of study even if they are dissatisfied with their jobs.

People want to play a safe game to the extent that they do not even want to try to take the risk to switch careers to different fields they like. They become complacent and settle for what they have got. This happens in more than 80% of the cases. With this being the case comes a lot of problems ranging from unemployment to under-employment, higher stress levels, lesser job satisfactions, lower productivity etc.

Researchers and scholars debate “Is it even a hard and fast rule to continue in a single career for the entire lifetime?” After all “It’s just ONE LIFE”. As an individual we have all the rights to make our life great. Having said all these should a person do to have a successful career to lead a meaningful life?

First the person should clearly understand the concept “LIKE WHAT YOU DO OR DO WHAT YOU LIKE”. Either the person should like the job that he is doing. This becomes easier if the person can do the job easily which again is possible when the person is capable enough/have all the necessary skills to do the job. To the second part doing what he likes needs a lot of risk taking ability, positive attitude, ability to face uncertainties, etc.

Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple Inc says “The only way of doing great work is to love what you do. If you have not found it yet, Keep looking .Don’t settle .As with all matters of the heart you will know when you find it”.

To make certain things clear, let us try to understand very basic things about Career.

What is a career?

Career is a job/employment that an individual undertakes to take care of his and his family’s living expenses.

•   career is an activity that keeps an individual engaged in his day to day life
•  career creates an environment for an individual to socialise with the people around
•  career provides an opportunity for an individual to hone his skills and pursue his passion

So how all can careers be?

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A         A man can choose to lead a career as a normal employee 

• He can be self employed
• He can be a part timer
• He can be  a freelancer
• He can be an Entrepreneur

But there is no restriction that a person should pursue only any one of the above given career paths. A man’s career journey can be even a mixture of all the above.

What’s the exact time to think about a person’s career?

The best time to start to think about a person’s career is in his young age 14years to be precise. It is the age to figure out the skills and talents and match them out with their likes and interestsy and route them to a meaningful career through a relevant field of education leading to a purposeful life.

 Till what time can a person think of setting up a career?

There is no age limit for an individual to either set up a new career or switch from an existing career or add another element to his current career. People have set up successful careers as late as 70+years of age.

Benefits of Pursuing multiple careers or Careers demanding Multidimensional work approach

• It is always a benefit to have exposure to diverse career fields at the same time as it keeps our brain live.
•  Reduces monotony.
•  Failure from one work is complemented by the success of the other.
•  It helps improve our expertise in more than one field

Is Career our life or, a part of our Life, or both?

It’s taken for granted at least in practice that a man’s entire life is driven by his career. It comes with a lot of sacrifice, planning, compromises, toil etc. We must clearly understand our entire career is to lead a successful life and its ultimate purpose is PEACE/SUCCESS. All this is possible only when we are happy and Passionate about what we are doing. CAREER IS JUST A PART OF OUR LIFE. Life is lot more than just a Career. We have our own hobbies, likes and interests, dreams, family, friends, society, sense of patriotism etc. We must ensure that we spend a Quality time for ourselves. We can have at most dedication to our career to consider it as a major part of our life but it cannot be our entire life expect to a very few who sacrifice their entire life for Nobel Causes.

Career should be determined by:

• Skills/Talents
• Passion/Interests
•  Societal Need

Career should not be restricted by

•  Our initial area of education
• Our previous career Path
• Societal Pressure

    So let's carry the responsibility of setting up a meaningful career rather than our career driving our life. 

The writer Mohammed Aslum is the Chief Passion Mentor of Mine2Shine School of Passion Navigation. He can be contacted at aminetoshine@gmail.com/9789186428