What do you want to be when you grow up?

Shweta Khare

16 years ago

Where do you see yourself in your present job say 6 years from now?

Where are you at present in regards to your career aspirations?

If you are planning a career change what would you rather do – Join another company in similar field but with different responsibilities – either to earn more than you do at present or for power position opportunity?
Or
Just do what inspires you and was a cherished dream somewhere back down the lane when making a dough pile was not the incentive to work?

What did you want to be when you were young and what do you want to be when you grow up?

People have always asked us when we were growing up what we want to be when we grow up – right now the questions should more be what all do you want be when you grow up? And perhaps even add another element of truth – just keep growing and keeping being something or the other – learning and evolving is a continuous process not in a search for an end but in search for fulfillment. And as a lot of older workers find new career curves ahead – the process to evolve continues in present times.

Layoffs are forcing many of us in entrepreneurship and personal ventures for which we never had time before. A recent AARP study provides new evidence that suggests career changes work out well for the overwhelming majority of older workers because of reduced stress and flexible work schedules.

According to an article titled “Older workers embrace career change, less stress” in USAToday:

Mal Krinn made the switch when he had the chance to turn a hobby into a second profession.
Not many people would willingly leave the security of an established doctor’s practice for a job in a kitchen.
Krinn did that at age 62, going to work for his son, a chef and restaurateur. Seven years later, he has no regrets about having given up doctor’s dough to create and knead bread dough, which he does at Jonathan’s chic restaurant Inox in Tysons Corner, Va.

“One day I was in the office and the next day I was a full-time breadmaker,” he said.
Krinn had enjoyed cooking and baking bread for his family for decades. If his son hadn’t gone into business, he figures he’d still be doing that, along with practicing ophthalmology.
But like the study subjects, a change for a new occupation presented itself and he embraced it. Now his transition may serve to inspire older workers who are looking for a new career with different challenges.

“If you pursue things that interest you when you’re younger, who knows where it can lead to?” he said. “You find out that you could actually go into what you got a kick out of all those years.”

David Perry of BalanceQuest describes himself as someone who at midlife has decided to get out of the corporate life style and use his accumulated knowledge, wisdom and friendships to build a better life for themselves. It’s time to nourish your Body, Mind and Spirit.

And of course there are many others who are quitting the rat-race to breathe in what they believe in even if the money they make is much lesser than their previous jobs.

Often we have to give some to get some and it is also the other way round, to get more we give away of something precious as well – to earn more money we have to (usually) spend more time at work and that results in less time for personal interests pursuits and less family time. When you are ready to give up on the larger dough you make; there is a higher probability that you might get time to enjoy more – the time you have with your loved ones and also perhaps just watching time pass by instead of always in a rush to catch the handful of time you get every day that seems to always slip between the fingers like a handful of sand.

Now what do you want to be when you grow up?