Your journey through dependence, independence, interdependence to the north star - A career prespective

Your career is a journey of maturity. As you take your first steps, you are usualy dependent. You are dependent on the guidance you receive from your leadership and senior colleagues. You are dependent on the knowledge sources you are provided. On the process, methods and tools you get introduced to for the first time. You are also usualy dependent on the emotional and mentor support you get in your work environment. The affirmation, praise, acknowledgment, and support you receive.

Then as time passes, you get to be more independant. You are now trusted that you are able to perform the tasks at hand with little support from your ecosystem. The knowledge of the task is now embedded in your DNA. You no longer need affirmation to be able to do your work. You still love praise and positive acknowledgments but they now act more as rewards rather than the driver behind your work. From time to time you may be challenged by an ask that is outside your comfort zone. You may fall back to being dependant but the collective experiences of past successes and failures guide you back to being independent.

Many people gets stuck at this point of their career. They are excellent executors that you can trust with any ask. Give them the job and they will get it done. But few ever realise the value of interdependence.

Humans are an interdependent species. We rely on each other to survive, to achieve a higher goal. We can't function alone in life so why can we do it in our career. As an interdependent person you realise that the value you can achieve collectively rather than individually. You realise that the whole is always larger than the sum of all parts. You see the untapped potential in each individual and you work to unleash this potential. You are thinking in terms of "we" and "us" not in terms of "I" and "me". Your brain is focused on the higher goal. You enjoy both the bird eye view that gives you a solid understanding of the bigger picture, of the potential, and you still have your worm eye view that gives you clarity of what is happening on the ground, and a focus on what is needed to achieve the goal.

Interdependence is a wonderful state to be in. It is ultra productive, healthy, and satisfying. It would seem like the end of the maturity journey, but the journey is far from its end. There is still the north star.

A north star is what everyone looks up to for guidance and direction. The north star leads people who are lost, provides guidance to the path, and hope in the darkness.

North stars are people who transcended interdependence into a state of clarity on purpose and mission. They are principle driven individuals who do not get distracted by the daily negativity and noise they face on their path.

They are resilient. The have experienced failures, pain, criticism, and understood that they can chose to only focus on the positive, on the constructive, on the lesson, and shun away the negative, hate, anger, and self pitty.

They are proactive. They don't let other people's action define their action. They don't let other people's limitations define their own. They define and redefine their own paradigms and chose their own destiny.

They see the good in everyone, they empathize with the fears and doubts of the other, and they trust their ability to guide, nurture, and care.

They are genuine. Their actions are driven by a clear and usualy nobel mission. They can not be corrupted by titles and gold. They believe.

On your career path, it is natural that you go through these phases, it is natural that you face setbacks that sends you (hopefully temporarily) back in the path, but if you keep the end in mind, if you strive each and every day to be a north star, you will eventually become one, and we, the normal human beings will always look up to you for direction, guidance, and hope.

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