Yesterday I had a lengthy telephone conversation with a good friend over a number of issues.
At some point, the conversation veered to career and future plans. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? He pointedly asked me.
Will you still be within media circles, editing an online newspaper or working on TV/Radio?
Will you be working for a regional or international media firm?
Will you retire to farming, business or academia?
Do you see yourself working for an international organisation?
Will you set up your organisation/firm in your line of work?
Or you are waiting for whatever comes your way?
All these were very pertinent questions and truth be told, few of us would have ready answers to them.
To put it simply, many of us don’t know.
With the exception of those employed in the public service (where terms tend to be permanent and pensionable), many of us who work in the unpredictable private sector never get to ponder about what will happen to us in the next five or ten years.
We live one day at a time, hoping that the future will be better, and that we shall always get better jobs/opportunities.
The reality is sometimes different.
As more responsibilities and costs set in (school fees, salary loans, house mortgage etc) many of us in the private sector become enslaved to our jobs.
A one week delay in the monthly payment of salary, can trigger a big crisis in our lives (the banks will be calling, the headteacher is yelling and the landlord wants his share).
We stop taking risks (about our careers) and fear to enter into commitments that would jeopardise our current employment status.
This is what they call a career rut and many of us have been through this or are going through it.
Many times this fear to take risk is well founded (there is too much unemployment, the economy is unpredictable, business people are crying etc…).
Other times, it is just that: fear. We fear the unknown. We fear to chart new waters, we fear to switch careers, we fear to start things on our own, we fear to…
Back to our conversation, the friend told me he once went for a job interview where he clearly seemed out of place.
The average age of most of the applicants, he said, was 25 years.
This friend is tending towards the 40s (we are in the same age-group). He decided not to sit for the interviews.
In his view, this was the first ominous sign that something was not going right for him (career-wise).
He went back to university, upgraded his qualification and has set up a consultancy firm with other friends. I wished them good luck.
10 years from now (2030), if I am still alive, I will be 49 years of age.
Of course I designed a plan on how I want my career to pan out. But even the best plans can fail.
So if I am still employed by anyone/an institution (highly unlikely), it had better be at a higher management level.
If at this age (49) I have to report to someone who was in primary seven when I was completing university (roughly a difference of ten years), it will be an ominous sign that something went wrong with my career plan.
If at this age, I still have to be ordered around to do this and that ( with the exception of clients), to write this report and that, to come in early to office or face sanctions, that will be a clear sign that things have gone horribly wrong with my career plan.
The conversation re-energised me and got me thinking hard about my life plan, which is in blueprint.
The major takeaway I got from this (which I have always known) is that your career lies in your hands.
No one, even your current employer, owes you a living.
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