I would definitely not think about a career to start with. If you're just beginning, you probably don't have enough experience yet to know that it's a career you even want to pursue.
The most important thing I'd suggest is to find a language you get along with and which lets you do things that you find fun and (maybe) useful.
I do think there's a benefit in starting with something small and immediate. If you're right at the start of coding, don't expect to build the next Halo over the school holidays. I like to emphasize small tasks that are still useful or fun. For example, if I'm learning a new language, I'll implement a little guess-the-number game. That's a small, achievable task that has a concrete, interactive goal.
Or as an example of more useful-for-existing-activities skills, I've learned most of what I know about spreadsheets (which isn't much) by coming up with scoring sheets for board or card games (Scrabble, Mexican Trains, The Great Dalmuti etc).
When you're starting to get serious, I'd try to get a solid foundation on which to build - but that's probably not something for the very first few weeks of coding, where you're constantly experimenting. You don't want to spend ages on academic-sounding (though important) topics just to play a bit. There's a balance here...