COVID19 has created so much pain in our world of work! Millions have lost their jobs and millions are reskilling themselves to stay relevant. Our new world of work calls for leveraging technology in a big way all through the process of value creation and delivery in an organisation. Hence, irrespective of one’s role, one has to be adept at leveraging technology. Doctors, engineers, lawyers, teachers, retailers, salespeople, service personnel, recruiters, accountants, secretaries, designers, builders and in fact, everyone has to find a way of doing one’s job easier and better by using technology.
The case for Future Self
Apart from acquiring the skills to use new tools and technologies, one must wonder if there is anything else needed to thrive in the world of work. It is worthwhile to remind ourselves that our actions are guided by our values and beliefs. We come across myriad situations each day of our life where we have to make decisions. It is our inner self that often guides us to walk a certain path and take specific decisions. Each one of us stands out by our behaviours which in turn are guided by our inner self. Two people behave differently to the same situation because they are unique by their inner values and beliefs which keep evolving albeit at a slow pace.
If one thinks about the person one was ten years ago and compares about the person one is now, the differences will be evident. Human beings evolve in terms of personality, skills, likes and dislikes. Psychologist, Gilbert says, “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.”
The challenge before us is to think about the person one would like to be. With a clear idea of the person one wants to be, the foundation stone for building tomorrow gets laid!
Building the Future Self
There is no doubt that one has to imagine a future and the kind of future personality one would like to be. It calls for deep introspection, map one’s current identity, think about the world in its current form and decide the traits one would like to acquire, the behaviours one would like to demonstrate and the image one should project. All of this is not only introspection but careful imagination as well.
Albert Einstein had said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Clearly, imagination is an ability that smart minds have and all of us must develop. Else we will keep floating in a stream like a dead leaf; we will either reach wherever the stream takes us or leave it to the fateful events which take place by the forces of nature.
We are not sure about the role luck or fate plays in one’s future. However, we have to make deliberate attempts, make plans, go about executing the plans and make course corrections based on our learnings and insights along the way. As they say, fortune favours the brave, we have to be brave to imagine and make plans. We cannot leave it to our fate, rather we have to imagine the future self and work towards realising it!
An arduous journey
Daring to dream is not enough! We have to plan and execute the plans with the highest level of discipline and humility. We need to build an ecosystem that surrounds us with encouragement balanced with constructive criticism, pushes us to make continuous progress and still better if it inspires us to scale new peaks. This is not a sure shot for success, but there is no other way.
We have to be on this journey with clear goals and keep making progress with diligence and determination. It’s an arduous path and all of us must be on this path in order to make a difference to the world.
