Ugadi Pachadi: The 5 ingredient recipe for grand breakthroughs in your career

Ugadi is round the corner. It is the new year day celebrated in Telangana, Andhra, Karnataka and Maharashtra (as Gudi Padwa). It is the festival celebrated to mark the beginning of the spring season – Vasant Ritu.

This auspicious festival is usually celebrated at the end of March or the beginning of April (depending on the Hindu Tithi). And it is interesting to note that is the time of the year which marks the end of a financial year and the beginning of another. For many this is also the time when the appraisal results are declared. The working professionals thus are stirred up with a mix of emotions, when this festival arrives.

Ugadi represents a fresh start. Nature is at full blossom and it is time for the reaping the new harvest of mangoes, tamarind, jaggery and neem flowers. The most distinctive and important traditions of Ugadi, thus is experiencing the conventional flavored pachadi that typifies the soul of the festival. It is a flavorful combination of 5 distinct tastes - sweet, sour, bitter, tangy and hot (spicy).

As a career coach, I find a strong resemblance of these tastes and the ingredients which impart these taste with the 5 essential ingredients that make a great recipe to have grand career breakthroughs.

Ingredient # 1 - Jaggery for sweetness: Find your career sweet spot

A great pachadi has a sweet aftertaste. While preparing the pachadi you always begin with working with jaggery. It takes more time to dissolve in water as compared to the other ingredients. So you begin by soaking the jaggery and allowing it to dissolve completely.

I coach professionals with mid-career and mid-life crisis. I have seen them devastated. While digging deep to find out the root cause that got them into this situation, the one thing that came out very prominently is that they had not known what to do in their career. They picked up the first job that came by and went with the flow. Careers just happened to them.

Are you one of those for whom career just happened? You happened to pick up the first job that came along and now you are not very happy about the whole thing?

What can you do about it now?

Like pachadi, like career. If you want to reap the benefits of a highly successful career full of significant breakthroughs, you need to begin with finding your career sweet spot – in short, what you really want out of your own career? And even if you are mid-way through your career, well, I have a good news - it’s never too late. On the auspicious occasion of Ugadi while relishing the sweet aftertaste of the pachadi – reflect on the aftertaste you want to have in your career. Not on what you want right now or in the next 2 years. But of what you want at the end of your career? How do you want to retire? How do you want to spend your afterlife? And then work backwards. It will help you arrive at what exactly you need to do right now to have the sweet after-career.

Here are some resources to get you started - 

Three Questions To Help You Find Your Career Sweet Spot

Know Your Niche: 4 Secrets for Finding Your Career Sweet Spot

Ikigai — Finding Your Career Sweet Spot.

5 pieces of advice for finding your career sweet spot

3 Questions to Find Your Career Sweet Spot

Ingredient # 2 – Tamarind for sourness: Things turn sour eventually, so will your work!

The next step for a great pachadi is to add tamarind pulp into the jaggery water and stir, thus combining the sourness of the tamarind with the sweetness of jaggery.

Now just because you have found your career sweet spot, it doesn’t mean that life would suddenly turn into a bed of roses. Everything turns sour one day and so will your job / work that you have chosen to do.

In my last organization I was hired to head the Campus Recruitment and at that time it was a good career move. I was promoted in a year and was also heading Learning and Development — again, a great opportunity.

Fast-forward 3 years, and my job had become redundant. The organization focus changed and the campus recruitment stopped. Learning and Development was more focused on technical training. Suddenly the job that was my dream job, got me frustrated. And this will happen to you too. Howsoever you may like you job right now – there would be a time it will turn sour. You will feel stagnated!

What can you do about it now?

While having pachadi, you don’t just enjoy the sweetness of jaggery, but you relish the sourness of tamarind too. Likewise, don’t just stop at getting to do what you like to do. Of course, enjoy the best but be also prepared for the worst. Sweet sour is a great concoction, isn’t it? So foresee what possibly could go wrong with what looks perfect right now. Build on a mindset which will help you deal with that situation. In my case, I made a decision to move on and start on my own. Of course, I had foreseen this happening and planned my move - so the transition was smooth.

Here is an interesting read about dealing with sourness at work - 

Finding a New Direction When a Plum Job Turns Sour

Ingredient # 3 – Raw-mango for tanginess: Surprise everyone at work by adding value!

Grated raw mango gets added next to the sweet-sour jaggery-tamarind blend. Note that the raw mango is not made into a pulp but grated so that tanginess of the small strands adds a hint of the surprise to the sweet-sour taste.

While I was heading the campus recruitment in my previous organisation, I introduced the concept of sharing the feedback with the candidates who were not able to make it through. The candidates used this feedback positively, worked on their areas of improvement and eventually got placed in the other organisations. This gesture was highly appreciated by the college authorities. We thus became the preferred recruiter in all the colleges. This gave me a lot of visibility in my organisation. The management was happy with me. I got promoted.

Your everyday job is a norm. Things you do beyond your job will get you noticed and thus promoted.

What can you do about it now?

Make a choice to un-busy yourself. Get geared to be grated like the raw mango in the pachadi. Make a conscious effort to look for pockets of excellence in your existing scheme of things. Strive to make the life of people around you easy. Be surprised to see the world around you change for good! Don’t go to work to finish your work, go to add value to people around you and get ahead faster!

Ingredient # 4 – Neem buds for bitterness: Don’t swallow, nip it in the bud even at work.  

A small quantity of neem buds or light brown tender neem leaves are then thrown in the pachadi mixture. They taste bitter, but when added to pachadi in a small quantity – they greatly enhance the flavor of the pachadi.

Workplace disappointments are inevitable. The will happen whether you like or not. But usually the mistake everyone makes is letting that disappointment fester into bitterness. You were passed over for the promotion and s/he got it even when s/he wasn’t deserving. You probably are missing time with your family to make a report, your boss has asked to make. You did the work and someone else took the credit – the list is endless. Things like these are bound to happen. These are disappointments which when swallowed turn into bitterness – eventually doing more harm (to you) than good!

What can you do about it now?

What do you do with the neem buds? While relishing the pachadi, when you get the bitter taste of these – you don’t swallow them, instead remove them and throw them away!

Likewise, when you begin to feel disappointed - nip it in the bud. Instead of swallowing the feeling, deal with it. Ask yourself – why are you feeling disappointed? What is the real cause? Be neutral. Then ask yourself, what is the best you can do in this scenario? How will it help? The answers are within you. Take actions based on the right direction that your inner radar guides you to.

Ingredient # 5 – Green Chilies for hotness: Be the HOT one at work – always!  

In the final stage you add slit green chilies (and salt to taste) to the pachadi. It imparts the spiciness thus enhancing the flavor further.

Hey! How are things with you?

Going on… Too much work pressure… Was up all night at office…

When you greet someone at work, aren’t these are the most common answers you get to hear these days? How do you feel? Do you continue to talk to the person or just move on?

By the way, what answers do you have when someone greets you? Most often, you have similar answers, don’t you?

You may not realize it, but this is ruining things for you. People around you are not looking at you in good light!

What can you do about it now?

Like the chilies add the spice to the pachadi, think of what you can do to spice up your work. When someone at office asks you what you have been up to, how about saying something like - I am helping the organisation do a million-dollar business or I am on a mission to find new ways to better the project and complete it before time. Get creative, think of a punch line that goes along with what you are working on and Be the HOT one at work – always!  

Ingredient # 6,7,8… – coconut, banana, dry fruits, grapes, and so on: Keep adding them!

The original pachadi has the 5 primary ingredients mentioned above. But different people make pachadi in many different ways. They suit their taste buds by adding coconut, bananas, dry fruits, grapes, fried gram and the list is endless.

I used to love doing everything on my own. Asking for help used to be against my principles. Whenever a task was assigned to me, I immediately rushed back to my desk and focused on completing the task all by myself. Then after completing it with a lot of struggles I proudly went back to show off the work done. At times, it was as per the expectation. But more often than not - it wasn’t!

Are you doing everything by yourself? Then I am sure, you too are facing the music.

What can you do about it now?

All the added ingredients enhance the taste and appearance of the pachadi in their own way without largely altering the original flavors. Add these ingredients to your work too. Accept you can’t do everything on your own. Ask for help. Allow people to help you. You will not just get help, but you will also be liked by the people who are offering to help you. (This is called the Benjamin Franklin Effect).

Bringing it all together.

Pachadi sets the mood. It doubles the joy of Ugadi. Ayurveda has it that the pachadi cleans away the vata, pita, kapha dosha from one’s body. It is a purifies the system and serves as prophylactics.

So this Ugadi, don’t just relish the pachadi. Savour each taste and recall the significance it has in you achieving breakthroughs in your career. Allow it to purify your career system and serve as a catalyst to achieve grand success!

Wish you a very happy Ugadi!