Remember when they used to ask that question when we were kids? Do you still remember your answer? Remember why you wanted to follow that profession?
Probably most of us didn’t exactly become that we imagined when we were kids but many have been able to fulfill their professional dream. When I say “dream” I’m referring to the original motivation behind the profession we “picked” when we were children—some wanted to help people, hence they wanted to become doctors; others wanted to help animals, hence they aspired to be vets. There were even those who dreamed of being rich and wanted to work in a bank.
As they grew up many professionals discovered that they could fulfill their professional “dreams” even without following the idealized childhood profession, and that different roads lead to the same sense of fulfillment.
The most important thing is to fulfill that dream. Consultant’s BS? Self-help talk? It might even be, but the most fulfilled professionals are usually those boosting best performance and standing out in their fields. If that isn’t enough to convince you, there’s also a mathematical equation to consider. We spend most of our time at work, so nothing more logical than working with something that gives us satisfaction.
I said satisfaction. And satisfaction doesn’t mean that the work is easy; that it’s necessarily the one that pays the best, or has fewer hours. It’s as if each phase in our professional trajectory were a chapter of a major story that you’ll title career a few years later. And satisfaction happens when this story is awesome and you’re proud of it (and sometimes inspires other people!!).
How are you drafting your chapters? Have you taken a moment to think about this?
And claiming that it’s too late and that you’ve done everything wrong in the past won’t cut it! If you need to change remember that the most important thing is the direction of the change and not how fast you do it (Edson Marques).
When you think about a profession don’t get stuck to the idea that you’ll necessarily work for a company, from Monday thru Friday, in a secure job with a boss to report to. Not that this is bad, it’s just that it’s not the only path. Humans have never experienced so many simultaneous changes and so many new needs than in the current globalized world. It sounds like cliché, but if we take a moment we’ll realize that "the world is upside down and no one has noticed it."
Take a chance!! There’re tons of opportunities in the new world being formed.
GOOD LUCK!!
Showing posts with label successfull career. Show all posts
Showing posts with label successfull career. Show all posts
3/7/11
What’s does a successful career mean?
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!!
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!!
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