People have been asking me things like: How do I find the right career? Can I map out the next five, ten, twenty years of my career? What if my career won’t go as I thought it should?
While I’m all for career planning, the case can also be made that sometimes your career evolves on its own. Call it fate, destiny, serendipity, God’s guidance, and so on, but the reality is that we are not in total control of our lives. Pandemic, anyone?
For me, I am particularly grateful that my career has brought me full circle. I graduated with a degree in chemical engineering and my first job was at a factory in Pasig (it’s still there).
But I got bored with plant work and became enamored with marketing, so I took a detour through MBA school and made a career shift to industrial sales and marketing. This was a sweet deal because I got to use both my technical and business training.
Fast forward about thirty years. In my current employer, my boss took me out of a sales job and offered me a factory to run. At first, I was hesitant, but after much consideration (and my boss was very persuasive!), I accepted the challenge.
I never had so much fun in my 30 years of corporate work. Two years later, I was given a second plant to run.
I am also grateful that I have found the company where I can retire from. For Gen Y and Gen Z, this may sound too far off, but it’s true. Find an employer you really love and work hard for. By definition, you wouldn’t want to go anywhere else and stick it out with them through the tough times.
I will be reaching retirement age in a few months and I am already laying out my strategies (more of that in future posts). But for now, I am filled with gratitude.
Lessons:
1. By all means, plan your career. But be flexible. You’ll never know a Bigger Better Deal will come your way.
2. Don’t think “I won’t be going back to…” You may wind up coming full circle as I did, but the last will be sweeter than the first.
3. When career opportunities come, think how you can flourish in it, not how things can go wrong.
4. Above all, be grateful. Your workload will feel lighter, you will be a pleasure to work with, and you will have a lot less stress.
Full circle.
July 8, 2022
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