“What do you want to be?” Is the question of this generation. This is the era of globalisation, with artificial intelligence and with the technology change, jobs have changed and New career paths are constantly replacing the old ones and hence, choosing your career is a very important decision of your life. It not only decides ” who you want to be? ” But also what you make out of this life. Career planning should be done in the smartest possible way because

You may not get the same opportunity twice.

But before we get to career planning we need to decide who gets to plan our career. Whether it should be a professional, your parents, teachers or yourselves?

In many cases, students don’t even get asked about their choices. It’s their parents who decide whether their child will be a doctor or an engineer.

In India itself, people are crazy about competitive exams like IIT JEE, NEET, UPSC and many more. And parents force their children to prepare for these exams. Even before the child completes his secondary school, they are already preparing for this exam in their coaching centre. But this is not how it should work.

Nobody knows you better than you and only you know what interests you the most and what would be the best for you. Deciding what subject you want to choose and what stream you want to pursue should be your decision. Yes, you may take advice from your elders or professionals but the choice is always yours to make.

But you cannot simply wake up one day And decide that you want to be a doctor and after a week you see your friend’s passion for music and then you start dreaming about being a musician for your entire life. This is not how we make decisions, you need to make rational choices, find out about your interests, your goals and yourself,  research about your stream and your future job, talk to people, plan your goals and that’s what we call career planning.  A good decision is an informed decision and planning ahead of your future is never a bad decision.

Students misunderstand their hobbies into a sanctioned up losing interest. If you have a passion for music, there is nothing wrong with following your passion but you must have a plan to support yourself financially till you get success in the field of music. because passion doesn’t come into the equation, surviving and earning money does and you need to decide if the risk you want to take is even worth it or not.

You should be inspired by people but don’t get influenced by them. You are a different human and just because your elder brother cracked IIT  doesn’t mean you will too as well. You can be the most successful in their interest because that’s where your heart and brain work together and make a dream team. Deciding on a career takes a lot of time,  it may happen that you don’t want to do something anymore that you decided to do for the rest of your life, and there may be chances that you have no clue what you want to be. You need to understand that this is a long process and this will take time. You will have to try out different things to know what you want and You are going to make mistakes and you are going to fail but these will only build you stronger and make you wiser. Our experiences make us what we are today and they will decide our tomorrow as well. So, don’t let others decide your future because a career is not to be a chance to chose, it’s a choice

AASTHA SINGH