Take it or leave it

The last 6 months have been not been great on the professional front.  Having moved back to India, I wasn’t expecting the kind of exposure and learning that I had in London. Though the stay was brief, it gave me a wider perspective of things around me, broke certain myths & pre conceived notions that I had, taught me that I shouldn’t worry about things that I don’t have control on.

Back home, I wasn’t too happy about my situation and became too lazy. Being the only person from my team in my current office, I was plain bored. I wasn’t contributing at levels that I usually expect myself to. I was doing the bare minimum to survive and get accepted ratings. Then the Bangalore trip happened where I was interacting with top business development folks, became an enthu cutlet and slogged my ass on a proposal. Once back from Bangalore, I was back to my lazy routine. I blamed it on the current economic scenario and the overall sentiment in the market. “People are losing jobs and I have mine intact” I told myself. I waited for the uncertain environment to end and believed I will be back to my best when that happens. Deep inside, I knew I was making a big mistake of not doing justice to my work and to myself. I was doing nothing about it.

Motivation sometimes is intentional and sometimes it just happens. For a while, i wanted to read “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” by Rashmi Bansal. The book showed me what I should do.  It is a collection of inspiring stories of 25 IIM A graduates who started chose to tread a path of their own making. The underlying common theme of all stories is “passion”. This book helped me in rediscovering the passion that I once had for my work. I started to look for things that I believed will help in sustaining the passion.

Back in B School, during a class on entrepreneurship, our tutor told us to write our goals, and read them everyday. I mocked at it then and never practised it. Recently when Pawan, a dear friend wrote about the same in the internal blogs that we have in Infosys, I followed for a few days and then forgot about it. But now, I have gone back to the sheet and I am seeing the results.

Here is the preachy bit.

1. In a sheet of paper, write your goals and read them every day. This will keep reminding you what you want to achieve in life. This sheet of paper gives me the belief and hope. After all hope is not only a good thing but the best of things.

2. Often, think of good thing that you get as a result of achieving these goals. A rewarding career, more money, chance for higher studies, a happy family. These things are a catalyst for us to work towards the goal.

3. Look forward to do something during the day to reward yourself at the end of a long day. This could be anything and everything. I look forward to read a book of my favorite author or to swim everyday to relax and reward myself for putting my best foot forward.

These will be of immense help once we start facing the hurdles on the way where we start focusing on the obstacles than on the goals. These will help us to be on “Goal Mode” than on “Obstacle Mode”.

Let me know if this works for you.

This happened when I was waiting for my Engineering Counseling. Suggestions and Ideas came from all corners as what Branch i need to choose and other stuff. Several permutations & combinations were done to map college with specialisation. My parents were naturally excited to put me into engineering.

There was this cousin of mine who was in the US then. He was the first engineer in our family and we cousins were encouraged (read forced) to take up engineering.

My mom would say, “Sundar maadhiri varanum life la” ( One should come up in life like Sundar)

STD calls were made to find out what he studied in his engineering and it was unanimously decided that I should choose Mechanical Engineering because Sundar studied the same and is now in US. So, I joined Mechanical Engineering.

Things were going on smoothly until my cousin Sundar came down from US on vacation. Mom got his appointment for me to discuss abt my career.

Sundar came and this is how our conversation went on.

Sundar : Hi da!! Enna, joined Engineering ?

Me: (Proudly) Yes Anna.

Sundar : Gud da. Which Branch ?

Me: Mechanical.

At this point of time his expression changed and I knew something was wrong.

Sundar: Why Mechanical ?

Me: Some useless gyan. Evergreen, unlimited job opportunities … And above all you also did the same.

Sundar: But I work as a Software Engg

Me : Oh !!! ( Adapaavi gala, ellathayum keteenga, Sundar ennava work pannaraan nu kekalaya ?? )

Sundar: Mechanical Engg waste da. Is it possible to change your branch now ?

Me already fainted.

Having said that, I duly completed my Mechanical Engineering and followed Sundar’s footsteps and worked as a Software Engineer.

This was atleast better. Another cousin of mine wanted me do to Masters in Physics and become a professor. Me escape

Back to the nest and happy about it … Hopefully the posts will be more frequent from now on ….