Possibly with the New Year, a lot of you are strategically thinking about your career. I always reflect on mine from time to time. I happened to chat with a friend today who was in the same mindset. It occurred to me, that some of the reading & advise I was soaking in myself (scroll down to the bottom for the consolidated list) might be useful to other people. At-least some of you might resonate with these ideas. So I decided to write it down.
I have concluded, the only thing that matters when you are figuring out what to do with your career is figuring out – WHAT YOU REALLY LOVE. It’s cliched but it is a tough one. You have to think very hard about what you really really want. It might take years to find out depending on layers of junk/rust you have on you. The junk/rust on you is basically all the things that are blocking you from understanding yourself clearly. This junk/rust is created based on community’s impact on you, upbringing constraints, unconsiously gathered perceptions/bias, risk tolerability, & lack of deeper self-understanding. Having grown up in a lower-middle class family with a focus on survival, I had a bunch of this junk/rust on my own mental models. (Although on the positive side, with my background, you also tend to develop a lot of incredible potential to come through in tough situations that a comfortable life might not imbibe in you)
Doing what you love is the only way to have a meaningful, satisfying, and impactful life. To me, it seems aworthwhile pursuit; especially given work forms such a big part of your life. In the pursuit, you still have to deal with constraints of life like rent & food for which you need to learn to be smart & scrappy. This best thing to do in the interim is figure out your general strengths & do high leverage activities in that area to get by. Although, always be in a constant inward pursuit to figure out what you ultimately love to do. As a benchmark, you need to find something you can dedicate at least 10-15 years of your life to. Sometimes just asking this question & then doing a systematic self-discovery phase can lead to the answer. The regular linear path to career growth, although safe, is both useless & not exciting.
I HIGHLY recommend the following material that will not only guide your thinking but also give you a framework on figuring out what you want to do with your career. After reading each item you will need to introspect. Be brutally honest to yourself, otherwise, it won’t work. Note: Some readings below are certainly biased for people working in tech.
Hopefully, this reading is as helpful for you as it was for me. Please feel free to email me with any other useful resources I might not have captured here that had a massive impact on you.