Why should you be thinking about an alternate career?

Hello Friends and Readers,

Those of you who missed my writing (majorly family and dear friends), thank you for your patience. Those of you, who have chanced upon this piece out of interest and curiosity, here’s a little heads- up.

I built this website 3 years ago with an intention of writing and sharing stories of positivity and everyday life. I believe that being aware of things is a critical factor towards decision making. We keep hearing “I didn’t know” when a child is reprimanded for shop lifting, a friend is accused of being insensitive to someone’s feelings or a husband is given the cold treatment when he missed the wife’s vital cues.

I didn’t know this was to be done.

I didn’t know this was expected

I didn’t know this exists

I didn’t know

When we share our experiences with each other, regular mundane life stories about things that we experience, our feelings, our actions, it makes us all aware. Aware of the existence of possibilities, of probable ways to look at the same things and of being prepared.

I have talked about this a lot in my earlier posts, and I wish to do the same in my future ones. That was the sole aim of getting this site up – to share, share widely. It feels amazingly fulfilling when strangers or friends tell me that they could resonate with what I wrote or got some insight while reading about a particular story. I feel happy when I contribute. This is what keeps me sane. When I was at home, on a career break, I could read and write more (well, not more like I’d like, but much more than my current state!). But as destiny would have it, I am back on a full-time job and it’s been quite hectic. Initial days of any transition is not easy.

While I have been immensely enjoying getting back to my hard-core HR strategy work, I’d been missing my writing. Hence, here I am. Back to what I like doing, with a hope and promise to do this more.

My first post after this mini hiatus is on all the three things you’ve read so far- being aware, career and things you love.

I was a successful, committed HR professional who had both the intent and the experience to climb the corporate ladder. I was on the right track. But I wanted to spend time with my kids and hence I took a career break of close to 3 years. Only those who have had to sit at home after a successful career would be able to understand the challenges of this transition. It wasn’t easy.

While there was gratification of spending quality time with kids, there was always a question mark on the relevance of my skills in the job market. Things happened, realizations discovered and I managed to run a small story telling set up with kids. That had been my calling all through but took me a long time to realize. I chanced upon this realization. I was not on a planned self-discovery plan.

Now that I am back at a full-time job, I know what my retirement plan is.

I wish I had thought of an alternate career for myself right in the beginning of my corporate career. Wish I had been more aware of things I like doing and explored areas and opportunities in that space much earlier. Wish I knew the importance of the question “what Next” back then.

However, I am an optimist and a firm believer in the philosophy that everything that happens, happens for a reason. And that there’s never a wrong time and things happen when they have to. Hence, for me, it all fell in place just how it was supposed to.

But I know of people who have not had that luck. I know of people whose company had to close operations and their skill didn’t match the existing job market and they had to sit at home and wait for opportunities. I know of people who don’t know what will they do if tomorrow they don’t have a job.

In retrospect, if I have to think of the things that helped me have both a career and an alternate career it will be these three things – Being aware + knowing what you love doing + the need to have a career.

If through this post , I can encourage even one person to think and plan their life and career in a way that enables them to not only think about their vertical growth but about existence of possible alternate options that may be needed at some stage in their life, I would know I have succeeded.

Being aware

1. Be aware of your skills- both functional/technical skills that make you good at what you do and also your innate skills. Innate skills are skills that come naturally to you. Something that is not forced and is not influenced by an external factor. My innate skill was “creativity”- I like creating things – be it creating HR strategies or creating blogs or creating activities for my story sessions that kids loved doing. Now that I am aware, I have this innate skill, I know I like creating environment around me that brings out the best in me and others, I create happiness and fun, where there is none!
2. Be aware of factors that matter to you- We all are managed, controlled, driven by factors- internal or external. I did this because you asked me to (external factor). I did this because I wanted to (internal factor). Though you asked me to do this, I didn’t do it (both internal and external factors). We all like to work with certain conditions. That could be as simple as availability of spices at home to cook a meal (a pre-requisite for cooking a sumptuous meal) or availability of a laptop to do a job in office. We know the bare minimum things we need to exist and to do our work well. It’s just that we don’t think about them as things that drive us. Try doing that
3. Be aware of your environment. Job markets are sticky these days. Lay-offs, restructurings, flexible working etc. are all part of a normal working culture. You can no more assume your job is safe and you would be needed in the job market for ever and ever. Your internal and external environment will impact your professional and personal growth. Don’t work with blinkers on. Know what’s happening in your area of work- not only in your company, but also in your city, in your region, in your country, in your continent and in the world. Only if a Blackberry knew and sensed the potential of a touch phone market, it could have been a different story altogether.

Things you love

1. List down (or think about) all the things that make you happy.
2. List down (or think about) all the things you like doing
3. List down (or think about) all the things you wish you could be doing but don’t end up doing.

This is a very difficult thing to do. However, it also links up to being aware. If you are aware of your actions, of why you are doing a certain action, of how that action impacts your feelings, you will be able to crack it.

I started writing only out of curiosity. I started sharing my writing with external audience because I knew I did a decent job. Only in the course of this did I realize that days when I’m not writing, or thinking about a piece, I am not happy or I felt my day was wasted. I knew writing makes me happy.

Career. Alternate Career

Before you read this further, you need to agree to either all or one of these:

• Your shelf life in a corporate role is limited
• There is no job security in corporate roles
• You can/will get bored living a robotic corporate employee job

If this is true, then there would come a time in your life when you would have to look at alternate ways of earning money, of keeping yourself occupied, of getting the satisfaction of being worthy, of correctly using your intellectual capital.

Hence, no matter how young or old you are in your corporate journey, think and ask yourself this question- What alternate career would I choose for myself? The answer to that would be a combination of the two things we have talked above- your being aware and of things you love.

As first things in my current role, I introduced a candidate information sheet in which we ask candidates a few questions to help us know them a little more. This question of, what alternate career would you choose for yourself is one of the questions I put in that form. The reason why I did it is to give them those 5-10-15 minutes of thinking about this. Because, otherwise in our daily life, no one asks us this and we also don’t bother to think. And then comes a time in our life where we get scared with the thought of a pink slip, where we tremble with the thought of a layoff, where we thought we would get the next job but we don’t and we sit at home wondering what could have been done better.

My submission to all my readers, spend time thinking and being aware of this question in your life. You will need to have this answer at one point of your life, for sure.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this, do write in your thoughts. A song is only good as long as someone hears and sings it. Similarly, a write up is only good as long as someone reads and resonates with it.

Picture credits- unsplash.com