It is a reality that not all successful careers are made consciously and after years of planning in a particular direction. Many are chanced upon. While we cannot do anything about a career that was chanced upon, because that is the outcome of the diversity of this universe, we definitely can do a lot about the careers that are made.
Who does not want to be successful in this world? Almost everyone loves to be called successful. But the fact remains that not everyone is able to fulfill his/her dreams. And add to that the fact that success is not only a very relative thing by our own standards, it is also a lot about others perception of us.
As soon as a young adult leaves college and joins the corporate world, he looks upon himself/herself as an upcoming CEO. Everyone wants to be at the top of the ladder, whatever they are doing.
This article is not about what you should be doing to get there, because that’s a much discussed thing already. If you look at management books or online articles, you would have read at least a dozen of them talking about the do's and dont's in a corporate world.
We are instead going to talk about when you should start planning, and what does planning actually mean.
Ok, let me drop a bomb. I believe a child's career should be planned when the child is planned. Yes, right when the kid is in the womb! Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t want you to decide if the child should become an engineer, doctor or something like that at this stage. But, it is every parent's responsibility to gain experience from his/her life and pass it on to the child.
One of the things every educated middle-class parent must have realized is that no amount of funds is too much when it comes to college and higher education. In fact, why wait till college, right through school the kind of facilities that you can provide to your child depends on how much funds you have.
So, point number one, start investing money for your child’s education when you start planning for a child. Do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, or hire a professional fund manager. But just start doing something. And make sure you at least classify your funds as “100% secure” and “Depends”. Remember the saying, “a bird in hand is better than two in the bush”. Finally given the times that we live in, I would say, “secure one bird, and then try to look for the two in the bush”.
Ok, moving on, let me say that money is not everything. Times are changing so fast, that when our kids reach the point where they have to decide a vocation, I am pretty sure most of us will be out-of-date with what choices are now available. Every year there are new courses coming in, people are choosing less-heard-of occupations which become mainstream only after a few years. Moral of this part of the story? Point number two is keep yourself uptodate. Make your kid proud of the fact that his/her parent knows everything.
Knowing is one thing, using it to decide one’s choices is adding altogether another dimension to it. So that’s point number three. You are the best judge of what your child is good or not-so-good at because you see him/her for so many hours everyday. If you could just leave that bias of “my kid is the best” and think about a few things like:
a) What is a great career in your part of the world (this helps your kid stay near his/her hometown which is, believe me, the best thing in the world)
b) What is your kid’s strongest point and what occupation suits it
c) What is your background, where you or your contacts can help the child
d) Have you saved enough, will you be able to secure loans to help your child get a good education
This should not just go on in the parent’s mind but also discussed with the child in a positive intent. By the time the child is fifteen, he or she should have a dream career strongly built into their psyche.
Of course, one has to manage expectations and live with realities too. Given the competitiveness of this generation and the uncertainities, there might be setbacks and you need to have backup plans too. That’s point number four. Be ready with some answers, or at least be ready to do some hardwork in coming up with an alternative career should things not work-out.
Now you would say, we already do the above things in an in-formal manner. Yes, agreed, but “informal” means you are not “diligent” about it. And I want to enforce again that the above should become a constant source of interaction in the household so as to focus a child’s energy, dreams and creativity towards the most important thing in life, his/her career.
Point number five and maybe the final one cause this is becoming really long. The college years are when parents finally relax and let a child do their own thing. Well, I understand that they want to give the kid a little space because he/she is all grown up. But look at the society and environment. The kids are getting distracted all the time and concentrating on things that they can do without, at least at that age. What is a college going kid doing thinking for hours how his crush will agree to a date? What is a college going kid doing wondering for hours what dress to wear to the movie outing with friends to impress the gang? I mean aren’t there bigger things to spend time on? Like how can you get to become the CEO of that dream company?
Best of luck folks !!
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