Long term goal

Have you ever thought "What I want to be in my life ? Am I headed towards that in what I am doing right now ?" Almost everyone must have given this question a thought while in school/college. But does everyone in his/her work life think about this at least once in a single calendar year. And I bet you, the answer will be not everyone does it every year.

So why doesn't everyone ponder over this question once in a while ? Are we so much focused on the present that there is no time and opportunity ? I think the answer is yes. But this is just one category of the people. I think the other category is folks who are doing quite well in their life, have decent and stress free life but are not those kinds who will sit and ponder on such questions.

I must say I belong and now don’t want to belong to the second type. In my quest for MBA, such questions do come up. These are the important ones which the adcoms use to select from a huge applicant pool. So having a clear answer for these questions is important.

Today was a relatively quiet day and I stepped out for a walk, thinking maybe I will find an answer. From MBA essay standpoint, its important to express how your career progression has been , what is your goal and how a MBA will help you achieve that. This is the general theme for the typically the first essay - "Why MBA".

Being a IT engineer, I belong to the most common types. Based upon my talks with some of my friends who are currently pursuing their MBA or passed out, Finance, IB, Consultancy, Strategy, Marketing, General Management are some of the broad fields which candidates enter post MBA. Now which one do I choose. Consultancy, Strategy and General Management appeared to be the most logical fields for me. Given my background, I thought I could really build up my case keeping these fields in mind for my post MBA career.

So today I tried to answer the next question. What about the long term ? Say 20 or 25 years down the line ? Where do I want to go ? I thought maybe if I try to think about so much down the line, I will know where I want to be and try and connect the dots. Well, this is what happened. I ran in to more difficulty.

I started with "To be head of a large organization will be good" And then asked myself ,"Thats it ? Is that the maximum you want to achieve ? Whenever you do become one, do you think you would sit down and say, this is what I wanted all my life ! And now I have achieved it" I said to myself, "No. This is not it. There has to be something larger - something with a social cause in it. Something with a human touch. Being a head of a large organization can't be the ultimate goal. "

So then what can be the ultimate goal ? Without running the risk of being too philosophical, I thought for a while - "Maybe the ultimate goal can be to make the literacy rate of India to 100%." Now that’s a goal which can be called a Ultimate goal. But there was a maybe there.

This is when I told myself that maybe at this stage, its important to look maybe just 10 yr down the line and the ultimate goal and be rethought with a MBA and with good amount of post MBA experience.