It’s been almost two years since I graduated with my BA in International Relations and to no one’s greater surprise than my own, I am now knee-deep in the tech industry in a career that challenges and satisfies me in a profound and wonderful way. Yet if you had taken me aside on the day of my graduation and asked, hey, what are you going to be doing in a couple of years? “Working in tech” would probably have been amongst the last of my replies.

Yet, here I am.

This blog post is about that which brought me here. It is not so much about why I ended up in tech, as it is about what I did in between to shape my career into something that was fulfilling, despite its unexpected twists.

I wrote this post for two reasons. Firstly, because I’ve been meaning to write an ode to all the to-be graduates who, with a couple of weeks to go, are starting to face the big question marks that surround the exciting but ominous thought of graduation. Secondly, I wanted an opportunity to talk about The Habit Course, which has had a profound impact on my life. At the center of everything that characterized my journey after graduation, The Habit Course is at the root of most of it.

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I stumbled upon The Habit Course when my best friend invited me to join their first-ever pilot cohort. Despite the fact that it was my last semester of university, I jumped at the chance to participate. It offered a time and space to work on me. It hinted at increased self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and personal development – three buzzwords that in retrospect, I bizarrely had just crossed paths with at the age of 23.

The habit that I took on during the course was simple. When I brushed my teeth every morning, I would choose two small goals to accomplish that day. One goal was health-oriented, and the other was career-oriented. In my last semester of university, these were two areas of my life that mattered deeply to me.

In a heroic attempt to condense my experience into one paragraph, what I learned from the course was deeply formative. Not only did my habit help me create a structure where my fitness improved (in fact, it has been improving ever-since), but it also motivated me to actually start my job hunt with small steps: reading an article, emailing someone for coffee, research a job board, or look up a company. Moreover, I walked away with a profound understanding that I could change my behaviour in a way that helped me get the results that I wanted.

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Fast forward seven months to October when I arrived in Calgary after five months abroad. I promptly moved into my sister’s spare bedroom, sat down, and started looking at my life.

Should I look for jobs in Vancouver and Calgary? Did I want to focus on jobs in the field of my study? What kind of roles was I qualified for? Should I apply for online postings? Should I start by networking? What was the best strategy? What did I want to do?

And most importantly:

WHERE DO I START?

To answer this, I started in the best way that I knew how: with habits. My training from The Habit Course had taught me one very important thing: that changes at the micro-level led to big changes at the top. I knew that paralysis happened when big questions started circling, and I was determined to avoid that.

I began with spin class every day at 10am. And then the local coffee shop at noon where I would spend an hour researching new job postings, and two hours applying for positions and pursuing leads. Within a month, I had applied to over 10 jobs and by early December, I had 3 interviews lined up. One of those interviews led me to meet one of my current coworkers, who connected me to Lighthouse Labs where a position on the admissions team had just opened.

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Although I had little interest in tech or admissions, I had a passion for student development and alternative education which were values shared by the company. The job also offered certain elements that greatly appealed to me: it was dynamic, people-oriented, and had a huge potential for growth. The culture was fast-paced and innovative, and I immediately clicked with my to-be supervisor.

I decided to trust my gut and go with it.

The learning curve was steep and I obsessively experimented with my daily habits in order to find the best and fastest way of doing things. I experimented with my interviewing schedule. I implemented a weekly project morning. I grouped certain daily tasks to streamline my workflow. I started setting priorities every morning. In the first year of my job, my life was focused on my career and I was determined to make myself valuable. Moreover, I wanted to shape my role into something that I inherently enjoyed.

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I’m yammering on… but it’s all relevant, I swear! My point, and the reason why I shared these three different cross sections of my life, is to illustrate the most important lesson that The Habit Course taught me: that I knew how to take action in the areas of my life that were important to me. Coupled with that was the belief that taking an action, no matter how small, led to results. There might be trial and error and a whole lot of experimentation, but starting and knowing how – now that was the real money.

It’s not just about willing yourself to start because if that was the case, there would be no Habit Course. And we’d all be kicking butt at our New Year’s Resolutions. No… there’s more to it. More than just tips and tricks on habit building, but fundamental mindset shifts and ah-ha moments. To this day, I recognize The Habit Course as having had a profound impact on my life. In exactly what way, I could never say. All I know is that I am grateful to have seized the opportunity when it was in front of me.