Be flexible

When I was asked to give a keynote speech at the IWD Celebrations at Women Techmakers Indore chapter last Saturday, the one thing we kept coming back to is — flexibility. So let me summarize.

Today there are several options for all students and professionals at every phase of their lives. You might have seen stories of Army professionals serving at hospitals during the Pandemic, or teachers becoming lawyers or even attorneys becoming comedians. No one career choice is final or needs to be. Students, who are still in college are at times overwhelmed with the number of options they have even within the field they chose.

In Tech, there is room for coders, testers, technical writers, advocates, evangelists, project managers, product designers and so on. What does one choose, and what if it is not the right choice? I keep getting asked this. But what I have to say is something I learnt from my mentors and people I admire — you can always change your choice. If you got your first job in one particular field, and you don’t enjoy it, you can always switch to something else that excites you. All you need is the willingness to learn and be flexible.

People go travelling, spend hours meditating, journalling all in the hope of finding their purpose in life. They should too, because when you do figure out the one thing that makes you wake up all by yourself early and work on it without anyone asking you to, that’s what you should pursue. Funny thing is, this “thing” can change over time. After all “things” are exciting only as long as they are…