Unfortunately, we are conditioned to be anxious about the future. Our parents have invested their income in our education. We have invested time, labour and tears into competing for the echelons of higher education. We may have student debt. Hence, from the day we step into the air-conditioned halls of corporate (or professional) service, we carry the burden of having things make immediate sense to us.
Some statements that I hear frequently as an early career mentor - "There is no growth here", "This job is fine but I don't think I am cut out for this", "There is only grunt work here, my manager knows nothing", "my education didn't prepare me for any of this, yet I paid so much for it", "I can't stand this place, I am already looking around."
So much anxiety. So much despair. Aggravation. Stress. Anger. Feelings of injustice. More anxiety. Confusion. Chaos. More confusion.
These are the primary emotions of those who struggle (and almost all of us do). Yet, in a few years, everything will make sense in retrospect. There is no training manual for this.
What makes sense for me in retrospect will not make sense for you. Lives, priorities, competencies differ yet most professionals will benchmark their aspirations to similar tracks.
If you are a CA, it could be clearing your finals in one shot. If you are in Marketing - it is working at a coveted Brand role at P&G/HUL. If you want to be in consulting - it is cracking an MBB offer. So on & so forth.
What should then be your mindset as you approach the first 500 days of your career? Should there be a standard set of answers? Perhaps not (and yes what was the right way for you will only be clearer to you in retrospect).
However, there are some fallacies in behavior you should steer clear of.
So your first 500 days should be about avoiding certain behaviors. This is a list of Don'ts. The Do's will be your own personal journey. No one can guide you to do exactly as they say. However, one can guide you to avoid making mistakes.
The best things about understanding backward and living forward is that you have the opportunity to learn from other people's mistakes and avoid making at least those. Here's a list:
Thinking that the universe owes you success
Newsflash. It doesn't. Being an early career professional means carrying a certain amount of potential and past success. You could have been a topper, aced a PPO, got 99 percentile as your CAT score, won accolades internationally, made money doing a side-gig. However, the first thing you should not do is carry the burden of your past success into your first (or second) job. A lot of management graduates, lawyers, journalists leave top schools and are shocked at the dissonance between the inefficiency of the real world and the well-greased promise of a successful career. This is one of the primary reasons of heartburn. If you want to go somewhere new, you will have to ditch some parts of the old. Hence, you should leave your entitlement in the drawer where you store your certificates and not carry them into your new job.
Thinking that you can live separate professional and personal lives
This is my favourite Don't. Whenever I speak to students (and the ambitious ones fall squarely into this category), they want to spend disproportionate amounts of time focusing solely on work. Clueless middle management pushes these notions further - "This is the age when you must work very hard and learn it all." Second newsflash. You are one whole person. You can't only do one thing without becoming uni-dimensional. Do you want to be uni-dimensional? Then go ahead and listen to people who give you that advice. You are one whole person. So stop thinking that you can be hyper aggressive at work without that percolating into your personal interactions. Conversely, you have to improve all of you and not just the professional you, when you want to become better.
If you are starting out, do not create barriers between your personality - be one wholesome person so that you grow both as a person while growing as someone with technical skills. Most early-career professionals don't think of this till one day, they are in middle management and looking around find themselves to be just like everyone.
Thinking that it is okay to overshare
I have made great friends at work. I know many people who have made lifelong friends at work. People find spouses, mentors and co-founders in their colleagues. In fact, it's impossible to not become friends at work! You would be unnatural or unhealthy to not build collaborative relationships with the people you spend 40-80 hours a week with! Yet, when we are younger and may not have a very discreet view of what can or cannot be held against us - we overshare. Your college friend circle may post about mental health on Instagram but the equivalent of that conversation in water cooler conversations, may or may not be held against at you. Don't overshare.
Thinking that you will do it later
The most successful people professionally are some of the most responsive. When I was in college, most senior management folks gave gyaan like "Be passionate. Set goals. Unlearn."
There was one young alumnus who actually told us that "Reply to emails immediately." It is only years later that I see the wisdom of this. Being responsive even if to say that you will deliver a week later from planned shows accountability and transparency.
When you are younger, any procrastination, in learning a skill pushes you down. So press the accelerator on responding to emails, trying new skills, talking to people. Don't procrastinate. Your job is not to be done the way you studied the night before an exam. There is real money on the line and value to be created at hand.
Thinking that being a douche is a power move
Well, today you may be a 24-year-old Management Trainee who can lord it over by virtue of your education (such as the label of your college) or campus hiring structures (being elevated into leadership tracks), but remember that what goes around, comes around. So disagree, disengage but don't be a douche. You can learn this lesson later or you can get a headstart and treat people the way you want to be treated!
Hope this post helped you out. Watch out for the 3rd article in the Headstart series on 15th February. Share these posts and leave feedback, requests and suggestions in the comments below!
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