Mistakes and individualities

As a fresh graduate coming out of the universities, we are thrown into the work world without a proper understanding of who we are or what we want to achieve, at least most of us if not all. The educational system is designed to enrich in us the theories of the world without a proper guidance on how to navigate them in real life. This coupled with our emotional capabilities, which are usually at an early stage, become a lot to bear when responsibilities come our way the first time around.

As we step foot into an organization we have decided to join there is this term that is thrown around often “you are allowed to make mistakes”. At first this is seen as an opportunity to break all barriers and make sure we can do anything without hesitation, after all the mistakes will not be counted. However, we slowly then come to realize these so-called rooms for mistakes actually do have boundaries and are not put forth to be pushed as we see fit. This is the breaking point where our little confidence starts to crumble, and self-doubt starts to take control. Many young talents, not yet having figured out who we are, slowly start to resemble our environment and imitate what others are doing right to avoid being wrong. This continuous effort of blending in slowly unknowingly creates within us a person we might not recognize a few years down the line.

The best resources/competitive advantage any company can have is the individuality of its employees which are the sources to its fresh ideas.

As organizations continue to fail to enable individuals, the burden of sustaining one’s own identity throughout one’s work life lies on the hand of the fresh graduates themselves.

1. Exploring early: Most students don’t feel the need to understand their interest during their college years as they pass their time “lazing off” and “leaving it to the care of their guardians”. But it is also important to note the available time one gets in college is the perfect time to identify interests, likes and dislikes, passions etc. A person who identifies these will slowly start to build their foundation.

2. Taking the exploration further: Once the real interests are identified then comes bringing them down to earth. As Denzel rightly said “dreams without goals are just dreams”. Our passions without plans and activities are just dreams we hold dear in our hearts. When we engage in different sets of activities within our interest, we will be developing our communication or other sets of skills along the way. We might come to realize later that we are not that passionate about them, then we will go back to step one.

3. Investing in our selves: The most important of all is making sure we are the best at what we find interesting. We should attend seminars, classes, networking events, getting to know the people who have passed through the same road as ours etc.

Once we have these figured out, not only will we have a competitive advantage over others we will also have the foundations needed to succeed without losing our selves. Then for us, it will only be expanding on our horizon and expertise to become much more better at them.

However, many of us currently employed probably have never done any of these things and might be confused on what we should do next. The key to this is giving time for one’s own self. Spending time alone preferably in a quite place to just reflect on our life in the past and what we hold dear to our hearts. Then we can slowly start to go through the steps one by one and re-start our life again.