I love Ryan Roslansky 's vodcast series The Path. I have long believed that career paths are never linear, and in my own circles, I have been long encouraging people to think beyond the linear path. So I am totally over the moon that LinkedIn and Ryan talk about it more actively than ever.

The visual that Linkedin uses to depict the career path is the best representation of what a career looks like today. We have been socially conditioned to think of careers in vertical growth. While many of us may not have a textbook definition of an illustrious career, here are some of the learnings from my journey of navigating the corporate jungle gym vs climbing the corporate career ladder.

1. Your education does not define your career trajectory. I studied civil engineering and was excited at the beginning about building things physically. I quickly realized that I did not have the flair for designing and in the first 6 months of being a civil design engineer, I pivoted. 20 years later I was heading the engineering function of one of the largest electrical engineering companies, a subject that was only a minor during my engineering days. I have seen many people give undue credit to their education. With the shelf life of skills and specifically classroom education dramatically decreasing, give your education only the credit it deserves - most prominently landing your first job.
2. Your first job is only a first step, let that not define your entire career trajectory. All the jobs that we do are only one step in the direction we take. In the development sessions I have had as a people leader, many people equate the years spent in a particular job or domain to their expertise. Expertise is gained and expertise is almost always never equal to experience. You can spend decades in a job, without necessarily having the right expertise and vice versa. Define a path for you that works for you, let all jobs be one step forward in the path that you define, and don't let a job define your entire career trajectory.
3. Breaks are inevitable in today's world. Make a break and pause rather than exit. When I took a maternity break that quickly turned into a 3-year pause, everyone termed it as a mistake and career suicide. While it is true for many women around the globe, I never once looked at that move as quitting my career. It was always meant to be a pause. In the 3 years, I was out of an active corporate world, I turned to entrepreneurship and learned some of my greatest leadership lessons. Breaks are inevitable, don't convert a break into an exit.
4. Stay curious and ambitious. Ambition and curiosity are equally important. I have learned more from the time I have spent in 13 countries across 3 continents rather than just the job itself. And today my biggest strength is intercultural awareness rather than engineering that I studied at school. We tend to focus too much on technical skills rather than political/social and emotional skills. Staying ambitious while being curious helps you gain more skills along the way.
5. Don't look for the spark & passion. Be a disciple of consistency. Passion is overrated in my view. And even more overrated is being passionate about something for a lifetime. I have been passionate about many things in life and at different stages of my life. While my values & principles have largely remained the same, my passion topics have changed. What helps before you trigger the passion & spark is consistency. Consistency helps to be good at anything you choose, and being good at something triggers passion & spark.

Is your career trajectory linear or a zig-zag of several twists & turns?