Dictionary.com defines career as “a course, especially a swift one” or “speed, especially full speed” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/career).
It seems that the definition is very close to what all of us constantly hear, i.e., in order to be successful one has to work hard, keep oneself updated, and if one doesn’t do it fast one might fail since the course of success is narrow. Right?
Right. But I also like to interpret this “full speed” and high competitiveness differently: your biggest “competitor” for the highest place in the success podium is yourself.
The reason for this is that a successful career is something relative and you’re responsible for developing its conception.
Being the CEO of a company, for instance, can represent success. But are you sure you want to be the CEO of your company? Or do you only want the “good” part of being a CEO (high pay, visibility, power, etc …)?
Think about it. Everything in life has a price, even you! (check out this post).
Having a successful career is hard work because you always have to give up some things for others. But if this is really what you want here’s a tip.
Before anything else, develop your conception of successful career. The idea is to come up with a spreadsheet that includes all the elements about your successful career: salary, decision power, hours, pressure, family time, your health (remember, you only have one), how much you like what you do, and how much you like the industry you work in, the possibilities of growing in the business, etc…
You can assign a value to each element which should all total 100. Then you can grade each item based on your current job or professional activity. Multiply the grades by the values you assigned and compare the scores.
This may help you think if you really want to change jobs or work in a different industry.
You may even ask, “Is this spreadsheet the solution to my problems?” Of course, not. To think about your career only based on a spreadsheet is to oversimplify a very important part of your life.
But the exercise of going through the values you assign to each one of the things that impact your career may be a great opportunity to find out what a successful career means according to your conception of it.
If you’re far away from your goal you can now start to create your path to success, which doesn’t necessarily mean working more and making more money (but may also be!!).
You can even be surprised and find out that actually you do have a career that’s more successful than those of many professionals you used to covet!
GOOD LUCK!!
