Last week, CultureAmp hosted a panel to answer questions from students in the Startmate Student Fellowship, and I was very lucky and honoured to have been invited to the panel to answer these questions.
At this session, I encountered some bright students that asked very interesting questions. Today, I want to talk about one of them, which went something like:
Can you give us some advice to get a great job in tech?
When answering this question, I could have given some tips for interviews, what technologies to learn, and so on. That, however, would have been some nice words, and not the deep truth about how to succeed in life.
So, I told them the recipe for success, that can be applied in any endeavour. Now I am sharing it with you.
The Recipe
There are many other factors that lead to success. However, these are the three main base requirements for achieve it:
- Set a clear goal
- Set a path to achieve the goal
- Work hard towards your goal
Let’s explore each of them in detail.
Clear Goal
If you don’t have a clear goal, something that defines what success looks like to you, then it is very unlikely that you will be successful.
The clearer your goal is, the better. In any case, any goal is better than nothing. If having the perfect goal is in your way please stop. Step back and define anything that is good enough: remember that perfect is the enemy of good.
For example, if your goal is to start a business, that’s good enough. It’d be better if you knew you wanted a restaurant. It’d be better if you know you who you’ll be targeting, the type of food, and so on. But if you don’t, you can work those details out as you move forward.
Decision paralysis is a thing. Don’t let it get to you. Any decision is better than no decision. If you have an idea of a goal, that is a good starting point.
The Path
Once you have a goal, you need to set a path to achieve it. Again, the more information you have, the better, but expecting to have all the details laid out on day one is unrealistic.
Ideally, you should be able to define your next steps, and some major milestones down the track.
When I want to identify the next steps, I ask myself: what is the next action I can make that will get me closer to my goal? Try to always have a few actionable next steps ready for you to pick up, so you always have a clear path forward.
If you’re starting a restaurant, you may need to register a business with your respective tax office, maybe look around for a place to rent, research the market, etc.
Milestones are important guides towards your goal, and can be as flexible or strict as you want. You may want to choose the neighbourhood for your restaurant within the next two months. If you think that that is realistic, then go for it, and do all you can to make that happen within that timeframe. A word of warning: don’t cheat yourself; you’ll know if you do. If you are honest to yourself and you truly want to achieve your goal I’m sure you’ll make every necessary effort to make that happen.
Work hard
This is maybe the most difficult part.
The idea of having a goal is that you walk in the right direction and your efforts are not wasted. You define the next steps that take you through the best path, to the best of your knowledge. Now it is time to start walking.
The road is yours to walk, and there are no shortcuts. There will be problems along the route, and although you may get help along the way that allows you to go faster, nobody will do the walk for you. Sometimes you can invite a friend to join you in your quest, and that may make the trip more enjoyable as you can support each other and make decisions together, but the path is still yours (and theirs) to walk.
You only have one life, so make sure you make the best decision based on your values and your goals.
Before you start walking a path like this, be sure that this is what you really want. You can always change your mind, and that is okay. Life is dynamic, your priorities may shift, or the context in which you made your decision may be different. All that considered, if you know for a fact that you don’t want to pay the price to achieve your goal, then just don’t start in the first place, and you’ll save yourself a lot of frustration and wasted time.
As I promised, in this article I gave you the recipe for success in anything you want to accomplish, but I never said that it was going to be easy.
This recipe cannot guarantee you success, but I can guarantee you that it will be extremely challenging to be successful if you do not follow them.
I do not mean to discourage you. On the contrary, I hope that you have big dreams and that you go out there and pursue them, and I wish you good luck so you can reach them one day. If you haven’t already, you will realise that the harder it is to achieve something, the better you feel when you finally do it.
Cheers!
JM
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