Hi, this is Grace Lee,
host of the Career Revisionist podcast where I help savvy professionals to.
build a career of significance and expand that into living a life of
fulfillment.
I'm standing right in the middle of Grand Central Station in New York city,
so you can see behind me the marvel, the vastness of it, how grand this is,
and this is where everybody is going places, you can look around me,
the hustle and bustle, it's busy all the time. People are buying tickets,
they're waiting for their train.
They're rushing to their train and they are at greeting people.
Everyone is going places. So I have a question for you.
Where are you going? Where are you going in your career?
It's always good to know your destination. I mean,
if you are in Grand Central Station and you want to go somewhere,
it's hard to plan a trip if you don't know your destination,
if you don't know where you want to be.
So take that analogy because it is the same.
That is true for your career and your life.
You need to know your destination and it doesn't mean that that is going to be
the destination where you have to be for the rest of time.
You don't have to get it right the first time because remember
there are connecting flights, there are connecting stations as well.
You do have to have an idea of where you want to be and what that looks like.
What does that destination look like for you? What's important to you
and that way you can plan and the actions you need to plan the journey to get
there. And when you do get there you will know you have arrived.
But it doesn't mean by that is the finale and a lot of people get stuck
because they believe that is the finale and they don't want to be stuck in a
decision that they're not happy with.
But what that ends up happening is they are stuck in decision paralysis and they
don't end up deciding
because they feel that if I decide it's the one decision I have to make,
and I only have one chance to get it right. But that is not true.
That is not true. It is part of the process, part of the decision process.
So make a decision.
Just decide where you want to be and every action you are taking right now,
any activity that you are doing to get you there.
Decide what that will look like and decide from the destination.
Decide with the destination in mind. My career began in academia.
You know I was, I started out in my bachelor's degree. I then went to the UK.
I went to Edinburgh, Scotland to do my Master's degree and
I knew that I wanted to become a neuroscientist.
I knew that I wanted to have that knowledge to be contributing in that way,
but I didn't know what was
going to come afterwards.
But I knew that the steps I needed to take was that I needed to get my PhD.
I needed to get my master's degree.
I needed to get my graduate degrees in order to do what I wanted to do,
which was contributing research in a field of neuroscience to help patients who
have been brain injured or to help patients who have a brain disease.
So I knew my destination and everything else that I did
followed with how to get there and it was okay working backwards.
That is a destination I wanted to do. So I plan my journey,
which means I had to go to graduate school, I had to have a PhD,
I had to have a certain number of publications so that I can be known to be of
the authority in that field.
So the same is true for you. What is your destination?
And after you get there, it doesn't mean that that
is the finale. That is your whole life. People can change their minds.
You can change your mind. You might find something else that is interesting,
you might find something else that you can coordinate in with it.
It doesn't mean that you are stuck with that decision, but you do have to decide
because if you don't decide,
you're going to have more of what you have right now and chances are you won't
keep going. You won't be moving forward.
You won't be getting ahead or moving forward in your career.
Once I had decided that my destination was going to be a neuroscientist,
once I had decided what contribution that was going to give,
what contribution I wanted to make and how I wanted to make
difference in the world.
Once I decided that for me, interestingly enough,
the analogy is suitable for where I am at.
The education, college was my ticket to get there.
It was my ticket to go to that journey. So that is how I decided.
So decide for yourself what that destination is.
Reverse engineer to how you can get there, what activities you need to do,
what knowledge you need to accumulate,
what skills do you need to develop to get there? So comment below,
what have you decided, what is your destination? And if you liked what you saw,
you like what you have heard and it resonated with you, give me a thumbs up.
Also remember to subscribe to my channel. Ring that bell as well so you receive
notifications each time I upload a new video and I look forward to hanging out
with you in my next video. Now it's time to go on leave for my train.