How to define your best career path

Do you currently have a job? If you do, be grateful.

According to Tradingeconomics, the unemployment rate in Indonesia decreased to 5.13% in 2018. It’s best to say that you are one of the lucky majority.

However, do you think that you are in right place to work?

Think again, what is the first thing you usually do after you wake up in the morning?

When we asked our students, many of them answered variously, from making their beds, taking shower, to having breakfast. No one seemed to answer “back to sleep for a little longer”, so it’s a good thing to hear, isn’t it?

However, when they were asked “How many of you who pressed snooze button to shut the alarm right after you woke up this morning and went back to sleep for a little longer?”, many of them raise their hands. Are you also did it today?

Procrastination

Here’s the thing. When you fall asleep your body releases a chemical called serotonin, which has a soothing effect. When you wake up (for instance because of natural daylight flowing into your bedroom), your body releases dopamine, a chemical that suppresses sleepiness. If you hit the snooze button you are re-starting the sleep cycle. After a few minutes your alarm goes off again. Your body however was just busy releasing the serotonin so you could fall asleep, making getting out of bed much harder, as your body is not ready to release the “wake up” chemical just yet. By hitting the snooze button repeatedly, you are messing with your brain, or quite simply, you are procrastinating.

Credit to Gemma Correl

Procrastination isn’t merely a matter of poor time management skills, but can be traced to underlying and complicated causes. It can be a lack of motivation, anxiety of imperfection, low self-confidence, being overwhelmed by multiple tasks, etc.

If you procrastinate every morning then you are more likely to regard your 9-to-5 routine merely as a something compulsory to do simply to earn money, not for self-development.

That’s the problem. A study from Gallup shows that more than 50% Americans want to quit their job. This alarming finding also suggests that there are numerous reasons why people want to find another job. The most common explanations employees given when voluntarily exiting their job are:

• Career growth opportunities
• Pay and benefits
• Manager or management
• Company culture
• Job fit

Employees also have a “grass is greener” mentality. An overwhelming majority of employees (91%) say the last time they switched jobs, they left their employer to do so.

This is unfortunate, as Gallup analysis shows that the longer people stay at their job, the more likely they are to strongly agree they have opportunities to do what they do best every day. Organizations could be losing many workers before these individuals have a chance to realize their full potential.

Understanding “Job” and “Career”

What’s the difference? It’s a tricky question. Many would argue that “Career” is merely a term developed by employers to attract best talents to work for their companies. Instead of using the word “Job”, they prefer to use “Career” as if it has deeper meaning than the first one.

Trent Hamm, the founder of The Simple Dollar, once created a dichotomy between “Job” and “Career” in a very satisfying way.

• A job is something you do simply to earn money, whereas a career is a series of connected employment opportunities.
• A job has minimal impact on your future work life, while a career provides experience and learning to fuel your future.
• A job offers few networking opportunities, but a career is loaded with them.
• When you work at a job, you should do the minimum without annoying the boss. When you’re in a career, you should go the extra mile, doing tasks beyond your minimum job description.

Let’s end this section with a conclusive question: “Do you see what you do daily as a job or a small step of a career path?”

It’s yours to decide.

Mapping out your career

A career path is like a journey, you can map it out by determining tangible objectives and checkpoints. Do it as you like, you can draw a line or make a list. Or you might actually end up drawing a real map…

Credit to Aga Artka

People have their own way. There are some who step on a certain path, while others, seize their mark by looking back and see how different jobs and interests led them to build the path. And like any journey, a career also needs a compass to guide yourself to your destination. What should it be? Is it passion? Is it money? Is it fame?

Let’s make a career compass!

To help you define the most suitable career compass, you can try by following these steps:

1. Take a piece of plain paper.
2. Write down 3 activities that you love doing.
3. Write down 3 activities that you are good (skilled) at.
4. Write down 3 activities that people will pay you for.
5. Write down 3 activities that the world needs.
6. Now, flip the paper and draw 4 circles like the figure below.

7. Now, put your list into those circles. Take a look at the example below.

Let’s break it down!

Are you familiar with Ikigai? This term is a combination of two Japanese words: “iki” meaning “life” and “kai” can be translated as “something that worth doing”. In the culture of Okinawa, Ikigai is thought of as a reason to get up in the morning. To simplify, let’s call it, a reason to enjoy life.

Putting these together allow you to find different parts of yourself.

• Understanding what you love and what you’re good at leads you to passion.
• Back to when we talk about “job”, what you’re good at plus what you can be paid for equal profession, your current job.
• Doing what you love and what the world needs as well, without suitable competence and proper financial rewards might be your mission.
• On the other hand, finding what the world needs and what you can be paid for identifies your vocation.

What the world needs?

It’s easy to define things that you love, things that you’re good at, and things that you can be paid for. However, some find it difficult to determine things that the world needs. But, don’t worry. We are glad to present you a perfect opportunity to seek what the world needs. It’s called Binar Career Hub.

Binar Career Hub is one of Binar Academy’s business unit that provides jobs for tech engineers that are still lost in unemployment or looking for healthier working environment.

By establishing Binar Career Hub, we are providing a place for you to take part in fulfilling what the world needs. It’s effortless to say, but we’re deadly serious about this.

• First of all, we are collaborating with big companies to reduce unemployment rate. And the best part is: they need engineers badly.
• Unlike other headhunters which set their hands free once you’re hired, we advocate you thoroughly, from day 1 to your resignation (like, literally).
• We are distributing talents to companies that don’t want to centralize in the capital. So, we allow you to work remotely. You don’t have to move to Jakarta.
• As a mean of digital transformation, we routinely forge our talents with exclusive coaching session to develop and make your skills up-to-date.
• We understand the work culture of millennials, therefore we are encouraging inter-companies networking by creating a borderless hackerspace.

If you join us, you can move your coding ability to the center, therefore it will be your Ikigai.

Please keep in mind that every individual has different Ikigai to point out their career journey. Ask yourself again, is this what your Ikigai really is?

Binar Academy is a non-formal academy to revolutionize education and transform companies digitally.

We believe that education and collaboration is the most important key to become big in these days.

We provide several services to transform your company digitally by providing the human capital, technological knowledge and business advisory.

We are also a full scholarship tech academy where we teach students to build an app within 10 weeks.

Further inquiries? Visit us at www.binar.co.id or drop an inquiries at info@binar.co.id