TOW#590 — What do you want to be when you grow up?
I ask this question to almost every candidate that we invite for a job interview. The answers we get are interesting, but for me the most interesting ones are those people who don’t give an answer or simply say — I don’t know!
I asked my daughter (14 years old) this same question the other day, in a related conversation, and her answer was great because it was a mixture of wishes that ranged from now until she’s in her sixties ☺.
When I look back, what is interesting in (almost) all the answers I have heard is that each of us, when we’re asked the question, immediately thinks about what we’d like to be when we grow up, but from an older perspective than the present one!
- The first question is: when will you grow up? What is the age you want to target and what do you want to achieve? Somehow we always aim for 20 years from now, though we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Try to aim for a shorter timeframe… then, if needed, you can go along in stages.
- Target / goal: it’s great when we aim big, and of course we should aim big, but we need to be realistic with the goal. I tell you this because I’ve heard unrealistic goals from many people, and then they wonder why they’re dissatisfied with life! Well, how else are you going to feel if you’ve set unrealistic goals?!
- Milestones: these are short-term targets, i.e. goals you want to achieve that are related to the length of time needed to achieve the ultimate goal. You must have them, and my advice is to have small targets that contribute to achieving your main target. Nevertheless, be prepared that as you grow and mature, targets / goals can be changed, sometimes entirely.
- Start: if you want to achieve the goal in five years, or let’s say in one month, then of course you won’t start planning to achieve the goal in the last year or on the last day — you must start today. Needless to say, don’t go climbing a mountain today if you haven’t even been for a walk for over a year… unrealistic, right?
- Keep it alive: achieving goals is no easy task. Many times you’ll find yourselves stuck in situations that’ll make you want to give up. You need to find some kind of catalyst to help you keep going. It could be a holiday, or focusing on other, smaller things… you should be able to find another perspective afterwards.
Still, the question will always remain: what do you want to be when you grow up? A question with a wonderful meaning, but which also provides a lot of information about the person answering it.
Wishing you success with the changes to come,
@kalinbabusku
