Marhaba (otherwise known as Greetings), dear reader,

It's me again, coming to you today from Dubai with my latest installment of Careers and other things!

I will be a little bit vulnerable here and hope someone out there can relate. I turned 31 this year, and although it has come with so many incredible, life-altering moments, it's also come with a lot of change. On the professional front, I went from having a reasonably clear career development plan that my manager and I had agreed to and that I was methodically working towards to a change that saw me make a move to Dubai.

Despite knowing that changes are to be expected in Tech and that they will happen quickly, I struggled with this particular one. This change happened so quickly that I experienced some doubts after these changes about whether I'd really made the right call or whether I was making a mistake. Mine was a classic case of life throwing you lemons and having to make lemonade, and I was stuck on why life threw me lemons and doubting whether I'd made the right lemonade (crazy when I think about it now, I know, but I got stuck in this loop).

When I reflected deeper on this, I realised I was concerned that my career trajectory did not look as linear as I'd thought it should look. I, like many other people, thought that my career journey had to look a lot more like this:

A steadily paced journey towards the top. So when I had to decide where to next, I found that I was obsessing over things like the job title, seniority, and whether I'd be managing a team or not. I was also worried about what this change would look like to recruiters (again, something that was ultimately out of my control). I was so concerned about where this move would land me within this 'corporate ladder' system that I almost forgot two important things:

1. Career fulfilment and alignment

Your career needs to fulfil you and sustain you far into the future. That is to say, your career needs to give you the confidence that your skillset will still be valuable 20, 30, or 40 years down the line or that you'll be well-positioned to make a switch or change along the way to remain valuable in the job market. Your career also (preferably) needs to be enjoyable for you and fulfil some aspects of you. Finally, it should align with your core values in some ways so that you can sustain an interest in learning and development within it.

Decisions you make about your next steps in your career should take the above into account and not only focus on the title, seniority, etc. Ask yourself, what are your core values (some of mine include adventure and continuous learning), and how can you bring your work in alignment with them? What are the latest developments in your industry, and how can you get involved? Adding these questions to your list of considerations when making career decisions should help you make more meaningful choices.

2. Career development is not linear

The truth is, your career journey is more likely to look like the image above, winding, sometimes seemingly mindlessly, back and forth, up and down, and around while you navigate all the different obstacles life throws your way. It's important to remember this so that you're not putting yourself under too much pressure to have the 'perfect career' or have it all figured out.

Conclusion

Steve Jobs once said:

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Building a successful career isn't linear and isn't an exact science either. It has challenges and detours like any other life journey. The key lies in knowing yourself, values, goals, and most importantly, the willingness to learn, be resilient, and have faith that the dots will connect eventually.