Are you scared of making career decisions?
“When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important.” – Ellen DeGeneres
Many of life’s greatest achievements require moving outside of our comfort zone. The thought of taking risks may feel scary at first but overcoming this fear is the only way to lead your life in the direction you always wanted to. You don't need to take a gigantic step in one go. Even a small step can prove to be a miracle in the long run. Taking risks, in fact, can be a beneficial way to separate oneself from the herd.
Here is the story of how I made some major decisions that changed my life.
Decision 1
Change my stream from Science to Commerce. The idea behind choosing science was that “I had no other option.” In my school, there were only two options to choose from, Biology and Mathematics. Owing to my lack of interest in Biology, I applied the “Method Of Elimination” and chose Mathematics. Even though my performance in my boards examinations of class 12th was good, I was not convinced to carry PCM forward. The traditional path taken by most of the PCM students is to opt for engineering and to do so almost everyone around me joined coaching centres from as early as 7th standards. I joined the herd mentality and enrolled in a coaching institute. I went to that coaching institute for five years but I felt that I was doing something that I never aspired for because somewhere I knew that I had no interest in pursuing engineering. So, with the support of my family, I was motivated to give BBA entrance exams along with some engineering ones. When the results were out, I had cracked almost all BBA entrances but along with that I got selected in the most desired branch of engineering i.e., Computer Science in one of the reputed colleges. There came the dilemma, whether to go for an easier path where the syllabus would be familiar and built upon the foundation of PCM taught in +1 and +2 OR take up an entirely different course. I chose the latter and gave my 100%.
(P.S.- The reason why I could not change my school to study commerce is that the township where I grew up had only one good school and going to a whole new place was practically impossible back then.)
After this decision, I pluck up the courage to make more of such decisions.
Decision 2
This was prior to the fifth semester of BBA. This time I had to choose between Finance or Marketing. And I again applied “Method Of Elimination”. I did not excel in Finance so I took up Marketing as my specialization (because HR, where my interest lies, was not available for specialization).
After these two major decisions taken with the help of “Method of Elimination”, I finally mustered up the courage to take the decision by following
“What I want” and not based on
“What I don’t want.”
Decision 3
This was the decision that I took recently about my stream in the MBA. I got admission in MBA HR from NMIMS, Mumbai and along with that, I got calls from some other good colleges where I would have had the option to choose either of marketing, finance, operations, etc. (the streams which are considered to offer better salaries than HR). But, this time I decided to go with my heart and opt for HR specialization which I was always keen to learn about.
In the conclusion note, I'd like to quote that "Completion of a course/degree cannot guarantee success in the concerned field. The highest level & chance of success is always with those who follow their heart. Make it your asset and not a liability. It doesn't matter if you realised it a bit late. Better late than never. Do not delay it by reaching a point where reversing those decisions becomes tougher"