From the ripe age of 8 I’ve been thinking about my career, I aspired to be a lawyer, professor, and writer. I read all …
From the ripe age of 8 I’ve been thinking about my career, I aspired to be a lawyer, professor, and writer. I read all the time and wrote stories for fun. I had lofty goals of being published in seventh grade, but my dreams were curtailed when my family moved. I can’t say it was all self-imposed because a large part of it came from having immigrant parents who really valued education and instilled a hard work ethic in me. My mom for several years worked and went to school, and my dad never ceased to be reading a book on business or engineering. The both of them spent a lot of time with my brother and I while we were in grade school. In high school I rebelled, and didn’t want them spoon feeding me. I often wouldn’t show my parents my report card or tell them what classes I was taking. I just wanted to have time to explore. I was studious enough that they backed off. To me it was more important to have the freedom to be self-directed.
I joined the debate team because I wanted to be a lawyer, and figured I had to be really good at public speaking. I also learned Spanish because I wanted to be able to work with a wider variety of people and travel for work. In college I TA’ed every year because I wanted to be a professor. I made all these choices on my own, but I think they came from my parents instilling the value of caring about one’s path in life, and finding purpose. They also instilled a healthy fear of mediocrity in myself and my brother.
Whenever I meet recent graduate from high school, college, and even HBS many of them don’t seem to know what they want. It’s ok to not know so long as you’re moving in a direction of discovery. They ask me for advice on majoring in engineering or being an entrepreneur; two careers that I never imagined pursuing but have naturally gravitated towards. My response has always been to spend time thinking about what you like doing best, for me it’s reading, writing, coding, and speaking. But there’s a bigger issue here, a lot of people don’t know what they are good at or enjoy doing. They struggle with the part of just getting good at something. The first step is discipline. Pick just one thing to be disciplined about, and realize that you’re not always going to love doing it. You start to love it as you build confidence, and the way to build confidence is to learn, practice, and refine. In high school I primarily focused on debate, and in college it was engineering. I spent 4 years in high school doing public speaking. Everyday was spent practicing, thinking, and presenting in front of a variety of audience. And I’ve spent the last 10 years learning, reading, and coding in order to become a better engineer.
Being self-directed implies having a plan of action, not one that is set in stone, but one that is focused on being good at the current job or interest. This helps you focus on acquiring skills and experiences. To me skills are just tools that you use to execute everyday, you learn from experiences and they give you the opportunity to hone your skills. The combination of the two leads you to your ultimate goal of finding your calling. But the biggest component is wanting to explore on your own, and picking a direction and sticking to it until you are no longer learning and improving.
