How to not get settled down!

To guarantee professional happiness and the sense of purpose in this ever changing and seemingly overcomplicated work life, effectively using your work time for your present and future is paramount.

Irrespective of your profession, there are three important things that you need to be doing every day during your office hours-

1. Work on your projects.
2. Get yourself trained in suitable methods or technologies, to make you more successful at your job.
3. Invest time in your long-term goal, related to your career or your profession.

Investing time, money and energy for our betterment are as important as investing money for our financial security. More so when you are early in your career. The more rapidly you transform yourself intellectually, the better career you are going to embrace. Consequently, you reap higher rewards. These investments are intangible when looked at from hindsight. However, they manifest themselves in the form of financial success, better social life, and thus a more rewarding career.

Most of us are not very lucky in getting to work on projects we love. Hence it is natural for us to feel entrapped and crave for an external force of liberation. This external force is not a divine manifestation. The wider our toolbox is, the better off we are in the sense of freedom we possess when faced with adverse conditions. The same argument is also applicable to our craft in using a particular set of tools. Hence the depth is as important as the breadth, although this perception may vary among different professions.

To put things into perspective, let us assume that you are working for the banking industry. Your job may require you to keep financial records of all the transactions that happen on a particular day. If you go on like this indefinitely, it is highly possible that you will lose your other unique skill sets soon, and become enslaved to the job. This instils a sense of insecurity. Applying the 3-point formula here, you can invest some portion of your time on training yourself in Microsoft Excel or any other tools that may help you perform your job better. Also, you can keep yourself updated in your industry and expand your intellectual wings in other sectors of banking, may be investment banking. This approach will keep you content at your present profession and secure for any incumbent instabilities that may occur.