10 things I’ve learnt in 12 years of work
A short list of career lessons to help you navigate your first professional years
I’d been thinking about writing this post as I was finishing the last series.
What follows are a few life lessons (frameworks, if you will), that guide how I work, and that I have come to understand and appreciate as secrets of our trade. The point of writing them down is also selfish, as I have not compiled them in this way before. I need reminders too.
The idea of this essay came from a few Morgan Housel blog posts, in which he organises financial advice (superbly) as a series of points that waste no time in saying what they want to, and leave out everything superfluous.
This is that kind of post. Let’s go.
If you don’t know what you want, someone will tell you. Figure out what your own goals are. If you don’t know, give yourself time to figure this out. if you don’t, at least don’t get drawn into other people’s goals. So many of our generation spend their time living other people’s lives because they don’t know what they want, or have never given it serious thought and action. Please do that for yourself.
You have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Growth and progress will come from being uncomfortable. Important decisions in your life will be uncomfortable. Learning can be uncomfortable. Nothing important will come naturally and easily. So actively embrace the discomfort. Know it’s there, and be okay with it. Remember, pressure is a privilege.
It takes time to get good at anything. You have to give yourself 2 years at a minimum to understand what the hell is going on around you. Then another 2 to master the craft, and another year to understand how you want to play the game. There’s no shortcut to this. If you are in your first year at your job and wondering why you aren’t as good as someone a little bit ahead of you, remind yourself that this isn’t school, and the goal isn’t to get ahead. It’s a team sport, and you will get good at playing it. But it will take time.
Your career compounds, you have to let it. In cricket, the best years of a batter come after he or she is 30. The technique matures, they understand their own game better, their experience teaches them when to attack and defend. But they can’t get to these years immediately. They have to put in the grind, and they can’t quit. This is what you have to do. Your best years, the most high-paying, the most high-output, will happen between 35 and 45. You have to get ready for them, by putting in work in your 20s. You can’t get to these years immediately, you can’t quit. Let your career compound.
Your reputation compounds too, so protect it. Don’t play zero-sum games. Pull people up. Help people for free. Teach your juniors. Be a decent person. The industry remembers. In your later years, valuable opportunities will come from people you have worked with before. When you apply for something big and there are background checks, people will vouch for you. You may have bad roles, not-that-great years, happens to everyone. But your reputation will protect you. Let it.
Good workplaces are rare. If you find one, your job is to stay as long as you can. One of the biggest mistakes young people do is that they think one workplace is like the other. No, it’s not. Good workplaces, good managers are rare, and they are worth giving up small perks, or pay bumps for. Remember, in your early years, you have to learn, so find a good place to do that. If you find one, don’t be stupid. Stay there.
Communicate a lot, then communicate some more. No one has time, and everyone will forget what you have told them or asked them. One critical part of managing up, something I’ve been horrible at, but at which I’m getting better, is communication. Write mails, send Slacks, texts, and keep doing them. Say or ask the same thing thrice. Make sure the message goes through. The onus is on you in a busy workplace, not on your boss or your team.
Sprint downhill, don’t grind uphill. I stole the exact phrasing of this from a James Clear newsletter, but the idea is something I’ve rolled around in my head for some time. You have to watch where your career’s momentum is taking you, and ride that wave. There is no point steering yourself in a direction that is opposite or tangential. Have the wind at your back, and see how quickly your career moves ahead.
If it’s not a fuck yes, it’s a no. This is self-evident, a simple decision making framework, and not new at all. But not a lot of people use it at the right time. Do so. You’ll rid yourself of some stupid things you might be on the verge of doing.
Consistency is everything. Anything you want to be known for, anything you want to build, anything you want to master, consistency is the key. You can’t do something once and expect results. Do it 5 times a month for a year, compounding will happen. Do it every day, progress will happen even faster. This applies to your body, your career, your job, marketing, anything. One blog and one SEO page when you feel like it mean nothing. One blog and one SEO page every week for a year means growth. Figure out your routine on what you want, and stick to it.
There you go then, 10 things I’ve learnt in 12 years of work. Save them, share them, use them.
More reading
I’ve written a few posts earlier that have overlaps with this one, and you may even find the same points there. Read them too, repetition is a good thing.
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