Welcome to Mind Spa by San Kom. As we embark on another series of topics that border around the career development topic, we thank you for your patronage and support since 2020.
The first topic in this series focusses upon Longevity, and the need to reinvent yourself. Many of us wish to stay in a job for a prolonged period, but seldom get the chance to challenge ourselves after a few years. One of the major reasons we get bored is due to the redundancy of the job. Another typical reason is due to the lack of continuous growth opportunities.
I usually tell the following to anyone who newly joins our team, “Make sure you have your fundamental blocks solid, so that your foundation is rock-solid. Everything that you wish to build on top of it will only be as good as the foundation. Do not forget or be afraid to make mistakes and learn new things. You learn quicker by making mistakes than from reading or word of the mouth. But make sure you share your learnings or approaches with everyone so that everyone can learn.”
Keeping an open mind to new avenues is always a critical part of working in a modern-day organization. When you start, everything that you do is new to you, and your contributions are also unique and new to everyone who is affected by them. As you stay longer in an organization, people get used to your style of working, and with the outputs you are going to deliver. And along with this comes increased expectation from you to do something new. When you start to earn more, whether you like it or not, the organization expects you to deliver more and more. Although the essence of ulterior living and the superior human being is based on living without expectations, the eco-system of businesses are built on exactly the opposite.
So, what can you do to stay relevant?
The least that you can do is to stay open to learning new things. By staying open-minded, you allow for passive learning to be part of your career, and time within an organization. The second initiative that is required from you is to take active learning up. By active learning, you look for learning opportunities that align with your interests and complement your skills. Ideally, these learning opportunities must aid you in your everyday work and help you in reaching the next level at the workplace. Opportunities may not necessarily arise within your working time, and at first, you might have to make the extra work, outside of work. I should say that the difference between those who grow sustainably and in spurts is mostly in the area of self-initiative. Take help in identifying these areas along with your mentor or team leader. Ideally, one should be able to identify these from the feedback sessions. Do revisit our Feedback series for more on this.
Once you start to learn new concepts, and come across new ideas, identify areas to put them into everyday use. A ship that stays in the shipyard can never become the queen of the seas. Only when you put the skills you learnt into practice, will you learn how you need to adapt them to suit a practical situation. Believe it or not, most ideas and concepts that look good on paper, do not work as they are scripted. They are similar to a puzzle that can be solved several ways depending on where you start to how you go on with the pieces. Devise a tailor-made solution for your situation based on your style. Otherwise, it seldom works.
Once you start combining active and passive learning in amicable quantities throughout every year consistently, then the longevity key is automatically activated, and one can start noticing the benefits of staying in a renewed zone that triggers growth. Although I should warn, do not expect overnight changes in perceptions and reactions. Everything takes time, persistence, and most importantly patience. Reinvention, and longevity is about a marathon, and not a bunch of 100m sprints put together. Keep reinventing yourself in small steps and keep the entertainment alive, whilst reaping rewards. And on that note, thank you for reading through. Please leave your feedback in the comments section. Stay healthy, safe, and motivated.
In case you were able to relate to the post & it helped you improve, it is a token of happiness for us. Do go through our other articles which might help you further:
Mind Spa by SanKom - Life lessons for a lifetime 
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