Your Career Lies in Your Past Behaviours: A Reflection

Have you ever noticed how a small incident from childhood keeps replaying in your mind years later? Almost as if life was trying to whisper something to you even back then — but you were too young to hear it clearly.

For me, that whisper came in Class 10th, during a Hindi essay exam.

✍️ The Essay That Spoke Louder Than Marks

The topic was Paryavaran Pradushan (Environmental Pollution). Our teacher encouraged us to add doha-like couplets to make the essay engaging.

I didn’t overthink. I just wrote. For every section, two lines flowed naturally:

"कटवा के जंगल कुछ कौड़ियों के दाम,सरकार लगवाए एक पेड़ मां के नाम।"

I went on like this, weaving 8–10 such couplets into the essay, and in just 1.5 hours, filled 11 pages.

When the answer sheets were returned, my teacher didn’t just mark it — she displayed it to the class, to colleagues, to the principal, even to students of entire School.

It was the first time I was recognised not for grades, but for my unique way of thinking and expressing.

At that age, I didn’t fully understand it. But looking back today, I see the pattern.

🌊 Patterns We Miss in Ourselves

That essay revealed what was already inside me:

• A love for elaborating concepts.

• A natural connection with literature and storytelling.

• A mind that thinks endlessly, sometimes restlessly, but always creatively.

Yet, like many students, I followed parental aspirations. I pursued B.Tech instead of literature. The structure of society pulled me one way, while my inner calling tugged another.

And here lies the truth I now share with my students: our future is already written in our past behaviours — if only we pause to notice.

🧘 Meditation: Learning to Notice

It took me years — and in the last 8 months, meditation — to fully recognise this.

Meditation became my pause button. It helped me:

• Reflect on recurring behaviours.

• Spot the patterns shaping my choices.

• Accept that my mind didn’t need “controlling,” it needed channeling.

This daily act of stillness became the mirror through which I could see my true self, just like that essay once reflected it back to me.

📈 A Business Lesson Along the Way

While meditation gave me clarity, business taught me foresight.

One lesson stands out:👉 Create your product 6 months before the sales date.

Because value creation takes time. Marketing needs planning. Sales need momentum. When you prepare ahead, you operate from clarity, not crisis.

And this principle, I believe, is not just for business — it’s for life.

🧭 The Self-Search Phase

Every human goes through a phase of self-search — a period of asking: Who am I? What do I want? What is my purpose?

This phase often brings stress. What eases it is not luck, but resources:

• Emotional resources.

• Knowledge resources.

• Skill resources.

• Support resources.

Success isn’t about eliminating the search; it’s about having enough resources to navigate it.

🌍 Connecting Back to the Hook

When I think back to that Class 10th essay, I realise it wasn’t just an answer to a question. It was a preview of my life’s work.

• The creativity I showed then is the creativity I use now in teaching psychology.

• The free flow of expression is the same energy I bring into mentoring.

• The recognition I once craved is what I now give to students — to help them see their hidden gifts.

That one essay planted the seed. Meditation watered it. Business sharpened it. And today, my work at Clarity is the tree it grew into.

✨ Closing Thought

Your future is not a mystery. It’s hidden in your past behaviours. Meditation helps you see it. Preparation helps you live it. Resources help you scale it.

All you need to do is pause long enough to listen to those childhood whispers. Because sometimes, the essay you wrote in Class 10th is not just about pollution. It’s about discovering the ecosystem within you.

By Vishal Pandey, India's Favourite Psychology Teacher Psychologist, Educator & Career Counselor Founder – Clarity (Emotion, Education & Career)