A misconception that I had for a while revolving around Talia Al Ghul’s (of the Batman universe) idea, ‘Suffering builds character’. Suffering, in context of this article, could simply mean struggle, struggle revolving around one’s profession, education or passion. Having a broad goal in mind, to get better, one might internalise the idea to work hard, endlessly, tirelessly. One might even begin to enjoy this process. Since everything is novel at the beginning, hence learnings come in from all directions. However, bear in mind, another school of thought, which goes “What gets measured, gets done”. Allow me to shed some light on this thought!
Straight out of college, graduates bundled with high energy, look for all and every opportunities that fall their way. Goals are abstract, not very well defined (I wouldn’t go as far as calling them vague, but something in the same ballpark). Hence, the means to achieve them, can also be abstract. First jobs, usually involve learnings of every kind, mainly attributed to the high degree of unfamiliarity of the industry. Individuals get a sense of job satisfaction that they presume will hold for the entirety of their careers. This, sadly, fades away. Then comes the sudden realisation of whether one is really doing what they love.
While it is usually fruitful to apply your mind completely to the task at hand, one must have a brief idea, if their efforts are in sync with their end goals. It is okay to not have precise targets to start off with. Early on in career, one may be willing to try out different things to find what interests them. The idea should be to try fast, fail fast and learn fast. Once a basic skill set is acquired, it is essential to re-evaluate goals and set achievable targets.
Awareness helps. Constant interaction with experts in your industry, reading online blogs and books, keeping a check on advancements in the industry is essential. This helps you know your interests better. Data backed decisions, coupled with hit and trial methods, with a dash of intuition, should help you in zeroing in on long term targets. Experience in the industry, awareness, interaction with mentors, education and the process of knowing yourself, will all help you in fixing goals. This is a long, painstaking process, usually with non-linear and compounded results.
Goals can and will change. But one must make sure they aren’t highly mercurial. Lefts and rights, maybe even sharp turns are acceptable in your goals, but u-turns indicate that targets set were naive in the first place. Accept failure, learn from it, move on. Give it your best shot, evaluate yourself relative to your capacity and absolute to industry epitomes, learn as much as possible and constantly have process checks in your mind. You’re not getting any younger, if you’re going to be ambitious, you ought to be working at that rate. Be honest to yourself, evaluate your goals accordingly.
Working smart, rather than hard, is the need of the hour. This needs to be internalised, in thoughts as well as actions. Once you have a broad understanding of where you want to be in 5-10 years, it’s time to start getting selfish about your targets. Try aligning all activities of your professional life with your professional goals. The efforts you spend, should be focussed. The time you spend at work, the articles you study, the discussions you’re involved in, need to revolve around them. Be selfish in asking for work which interest you. Curate your social feeds to include content revolving around your industry. Network with people who might achieved similar goals. Find mentors and be inquisitive, not opportunistic, about your goals. Simply put, What gets measured, get done.
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist and a Holocaust survivor, brilliantly portrayed through his book, “Man’s Search For Meaning”, that suffering in and of itself, is meaningless.
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