EP. 1 — Finding a way and getting started.
By: Matheus Torchia
Tags: Carrer, Getting Started, First Steps, Decision Making, Action

Photo by Fernando Puente on Unsplash

My name is Matheus and I’m 24 Years Old. I’ve never written a text in my entire life but I’ve decided to keep a record of my progress as a person that want’s to be better and to contribute more every day. Since I think that this self knowledge journey will make me learn a lot, I’m going to use medium as my journal, sharing everything and hoping that this can add value to other people’s life.

I don’t have a major plan here, but feel free to follow along!

The context

Six months ago I’ve graduated from Engineering School and started my professional life. I’ve had great moments inside the university where I was really sure about what I was doing. I’ve played an major role in an engineering project, and had the oportunity to lead a 40 people team during a hole year where we were really successful.

I found myself complete inside the university. I was relevant, confident, with a lot of friends and support.

When I started my interships tough, I’ve started to think about my professional life, and began to experience some uncertains about life. I wasn’t sure about my future in general, but was the uncertainty about my carrer that bothered me the most. Those feelings got stronger as I came to the end of the course and once I’ve graduated, they became overwhelming. I got hired in the company I worked as an intern, but I wasn’t happy. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I couldn’t find it out.

Something that didn’t help was this huge amount of self development content that we consume in the internet every day. People talk about purpose, ‘Ikigai’ and put in our head’s that to be successeful we need to find the ONE THING we were born to do, or the thing that we are good, the world need’s and we’re going to be paid for.

Another important factor was the quarentine. Working from home, gave me more time to think, so I could not get into autopilot and ignore the anxiety generated by the uncertains.

I got obcessed about finding the right thing to do about my life and my career. My performance at my job fell down and I got stuck in the same place for weeks. I coudn’t define a target so I couldn’t trace a plan and take action.

My next step was to search for help. I’ve called a friend that is almost a role model. He has success in a lot of areas of his life, and this conversation, alongside with some thinking made me come to some conclusions that have helped me get moving and setting some goals.

Note: This is what helped ME getting into action. I’m not a self development guru or a psychologist. This is not necessarily right, but if it helped me, somebody that is still in the begining of the journey, it can help you to.

1- Financial’s first.

It’s really hard to imagine what you’ll be working on in 10, 20 and 30 years. What company, what activity or what position. But it is substancialy easier to think about the things you want to have in the future.

What happen is that most of us feel ashamed to assume that we work to get material good’s. Money, a big house and a nice car. But there is nothing wrong with that and you need to overcome this feeling.

I mean, writte it down. What car do you want? How many times you want to travel abroad? How you want your house to be? What clothes do you want? What kind of toys you want your kids to have? what kind of food do you want to consume?

We are trained our hole life to desire material stuffs and by writting down what do we want, we can calculate the cost of our lifes in the future, and with this number, usually, we can narrow the options we are considering for our carrers.

2- Cut off the purpose bullshit.

I’m not saying that fulfilling a purpose is not important, but this is not the first thing you should do when planning your carrer for the first time. Usually, internet entrepreneurs and self development gurus, tell us that their purpose is to impact peoples life. It can be. Really. But usually it wasn’t always like this. They’ve started doing something they like, slowly they were able to make a living out of it, and then it beaceme their purpose, not the oposite.

So, forget about purpose for now. You can adjust your path as you go. Start with what you want financially, then think about what you’re willing to sacrifice for that. Your relationship? A friday night with friends? Your phisical health? Leaving your home town? Moving to a isolated place? There is no right or wrong here, just what YOU and only YOU want to sacrifice to get what you want.

3- Look to people that already have what you want.

Now that you know somethings you want and what you’re willing to sacrifice to get those things, look at people who are already where you want to be in the future. People that have what you want and have sacrificed no more than what you’re willing to sacrifice. Talk to those people. Try to understand how they got there and how you can get there as well. Probably, by now, you’ll realize that are not a ton of possibilities to get you where you want to be, there are probably only a few.

Now look at those possibilities, which one is easier for you? Maybe you work in a company where you can get to where you want to be. Maybe you have a company that can lead you to where you want to be. Maybe your friend works at one. You probably can see an easier option to invest your time into. Go for that one.

4- Create plans and start immediately

Writte down what you are thinking so you dont forget it. You’ll adjust it a lot as you go, but reading your plans every day will make you more motivated and will give you more clarity.

After thinking about what you want, what you’re willing to sacrifice, looking for role models, and looking at what you have today that can help you getting where you want to be, you will be abe to think of a few steps that you can take to get there. Start them immediately.

5- Start Sharing and retributing

Feeding somebody that doesn’t have anything to eat, will make you feel really fulfilled. I know only a few thing that made me feel like this. This feeling off fulfillment, will show you that sharing is one off the most important things in life and will take some unnecessary weight out of the professional/financial decisions we have to make in our lifes. So, grab a considerable percentage of your earnings (5% work for me) and start helping people.

PS: It is really important to see the results and to be active. Not only transfering money to charities. You need to see the smile on peoples face when you help them, to realize you are making a diference.

Only the beginning

Those 5 steps have really helped me start moving. I still had a lot of doubt’s and I was still looking for answers, but this took me out of the inertia, calmed me down and give me clarity to start, and I hope that it can help you as well.

Once you’ve started remember to pay attention on the things you’re doing. Try to understand which ones you like and which ones you dont, where you have a good performance, and where you still need to work harder to get good results. Later this knowledge will help you being more precise in your career decisions.

Hope you’ve enjoyed! Thank You!