The Doctor Who Moments of my career: Top 5 things I learned/changed as I complete 5 years of my professional life

We all change, when you think about it. We’re all different people all through our lives. And that’s OK, that’s good, you gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. – Doctor Who

6:00 am May 6th 2015. Kaar Tech, Vadapalani, Chennai, India:

It was the first time I was entering an enterprise as a full-time employee. Freshly armed with an MBA, I was a 23-year old with certain pre-conceived notions of grandeur and loads of confidence.

From then on the last five years, was a rollercoaster ride of learning, victories, and setbacks. Looking back at the last five years one of the most important changes that has come in was the change in my thought process.

From a beady-eyed 23-year-old to a somewhat experienced 28-year-old, this journey has taught me many lessons. Given below are the top five thought processes that I have unlearned over the last five years.

Learning 1:

• What I Thought in 2015: Get the process right. Everything else will fall in place.
• What I know now in 2020: People and Change management are going to be the most important part of your job. If you can’t get that right, no process or technology can help you.

Learning 2:

• What I thought in 2015: Getting your job done is all that matters.
• What I know now in 2020: Networking and making sure you are visible is as important as getting your job done

Learning 3:

• What I thought in 2015: I have to be the first choice for a role/opportunity
• What I know now in 2020: It doesn’t matter if you are the first choice or not. Just take the role and make it your own.

Learning 4:

• What I thought in 2015: If done right, a career is a straight linear continuously rising line
• What I know now in 2020: Your career roadmap is like the stock market. It will have its highs and lows. Also, sometimes you need to move sideways in order to get ahead.

Learning 5:

• What I thought in 2015: The speed of output depends on the speed of execution
• What I know now in 2020: We can only control the process and ourselves. Sometimes success takes time. That doesn’t mean you decrease the speed of execution. You go at it faster than ever before. But you need to be patient for the results.

8:30 PM, 5th May 2020, Santhome, Chennai

A lot has happened in the last five years. I have visited more countries in the last five than what I had visited in the preceding 20 odd years. I have met people across many walks of life and have been privy to an interesting array of perspectives. I have learned and unlearnt a lot of hard and soft skills. I have met and created my tribe of mentors whom I know will always look out for me through thick and thin. It has been a fun five years.

Most importantly and luckily, these five years were spent at Kaar Technologies. From being a management trainee to becoming the head of the Marketing department, Kaar Tech has provided me not only a career roadmap but also a set of amazing mentors who helped me become who I am today.

Also, there was a lot more I wanted to write, but I intentionally kept it to these five learnings because personally unlearning these five thought processes and bringing in the new thought processes was the most difficult for me.

And that is what I believe was the most difficult learning in this journey as well. That sometimes, you can be wrong and it is not a weakness to accept the mistake and look for the solutions to clear up the mistake/mess we have created. You have to change your thought process and throw the old ones in the dustbin. This can only be done through a lot of introspection.

As the Ruth Doctor asked The Doctor “Have you ever been limited by who you are?” I would like to think that I am not limited by what I don’t know and that I could move forward open-minded enough that I will learn all that the world has to offer.