Congrats, you’re a college grad now and entered the world of professionalism.
But a lot of you still have’t figured it out yet what to do next apart from following office’s daily routine. Few of you tend to explore a lot things to keep themselves busy, while others just go with the flow. Well, I was one of you once. I was guided by many mentors on this and here it is
1. Never ever stop learning
You may have been told that learning will stop after college, but it’s not true. Once you start working on some project, you’ll realise there’s so much we weren’t taught in the college. There’s so much to learn. We now live in a fast paced world, everything is constantly evolving around us. The only way to be on top is to learn, learn and learn. Develop reading as a hobby. Read books & blogs and experiment with whatever you’ve learned. Simple reading won’t help. Here’s a list of books that I admire the most. Follow industry leaders on Linkedin to learn from them. Here’s a list for you:
- Joe Toscano, Strong digital detox advisor
- Kunal Shah, Founder @ Cred
- Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder @Linkedin
- Ankur Warikoo, Founder @WebVeda, @nearbuy.com
- Neil Patel, SEO Wizard
- Vani Kola, MD @Kalaari Capital
2. Keep yourself healthy
You won’t realise it sooner, but now there aren’t any month long vacations. We now have kind of a fixed schedule for everyday. And following this schedule we forget to take care of our body. Both mental and physical health is very important. You’ll realise how true the saying, “health is wealth” is.
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For physical fitness: Take out at least 30 minutes from 24 hours (~2%) for your health. Do home workout or yoga, exercise in gym or join some Zumba classes. I used to cycle from home to office. You’ll see that a day started with a morning workout is the most productive of them all.
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For mental peace: I go out a lot. Mostly on weekend gateways. Wandering in nature with friends gives me real peace of mind. Interacting with locals teaches us a lot about the world and people we didn’t know about. It changes our perception.
3. What to do with the money
Suddenly, you’ll start getting more money than you can spend or use to get in college. Now comes the time when you should really look at the bigger picture:
- Start regular saving, no matter how small: You might need a large sum of money at a later time when you want to start your own business, invest in your family/friend’s venture or want to fulfil a dream of yours like having a car or a house or going abroad for higher studies. Believe me, this small saving is gonna be your saviour in the time of need.
- Start regular investment, no matter how small: Now, you need big chunk of money at many stages of your life like wedding, kids, kids-school, medical conditions, etc. When these time comes it takes away a big chunk of your savings which can be avoided altogether. There are many SIPs(Systematic Investment Plans) with different time periods which will give you large sum of money at different time of life. You can also choose to invest in stocks. But please do a thorough research before giving your hard-earned money to anyone.
- Donate to a cause you support: You always wanted to help people, nature or mother Earth. Now you’re capable of doing so. You will be amazed how less it takes to support a cause you always wanted to. Be it a girl child education, saving Amazon jungles, supporting orphans, all of it requires very minuscule amount of money.
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Fulfil your need and dreams, not desires: Well, you always wanted that headphones with super noise cancellation, or the laptop with highest configuration or the super-bike with highest power. Well, you have every right to do so. But make sure you have done above three first. Cause when we start earning, it’s very easy to fall prey to consumerism. Now comes the need to understand the difference between dreams and desires. Do you need the designer corner table in your living room, perhaps not now. Do you need the bike to commute to work, perhaps yes. Do you need a pool table for your weekend parties, may be not now as you can go out to a club which has it.
4. How to excel at work
- Prioritise and Say 'NO': You have finite time. If you say ‘YES’ to one thing, indirectly you’re saying ‘NO’ to something else. You need to prioritise your responsibilities to figure this out. You might feel bad for saying no, but a no is far better than saying yes and not completing or completing by compromising on some other higher priority responsibility.
- Listen to your oversights and over communicate: You might be smart and feel your oversights are not as good as you, but you ignore the fact that even they cracked the same or tougher interview process to be there. They are there for a longer time and have more experience than you. You still can learn a lot from them. Communicate tiniest details to them, may be they have a better solution to your problems. No communication assuming it’s understood is the worst mistake you can made.
- Lead by example: Many a times you expect someone else to do something but it seldom happens. Treat this time as an opportunity, do it yourself. While doing it, you’ll get to learn a lot and also, you’ll be leading by example. People starts trusting you and your words more. And this trust is very important for professional growth.
- Attach yourself with organisation's Vision: Joining an organisation based on compensation is the worst decision. It might be a good start but eventually you’ll realise that it’s not the best strategy as you might be working on a problem which is not satisfying for you. You may not be happy in a longer run. When you attach yourself with the organisation’s vision, you deliver the best product, you create the best impact and in doing so you get satisfaction which a lot of us are missing these days.
There are other things you can do as well, like writing blogs, giving and attending seminars, etc. You’ll learn by yourself once you start following above. All the best and do share with your friends and connections for whom you think it can create an impact