That’s not a rhetorical question, but it is deceptively simple. Only you can answer so that it reflects your career goals. But for reasons outlined in this post, many professionals fail to steer their careers. Regardless of the reason, their careers end up paying the price.
Just as life happens while you’re busy making other plans, your career happens while you’re busy working. Since it’s your career, you should steer it based on where you want to go.
Consider that your career is essentially a journey in which your current job is one stop along the way. How long you stay in each job and where you go when you leave should be determined by you. The reality however is that many people unconsciously slide over to the passenger seat. Regardless, if you fail to manage your career, someone else will do it for you. And you may not even be aware it’s happening.
Every stay or go decision you make in your career ultimately determines where you end up, even if you don’t make them! That may not make sense if you’re just getting started. But as you approach the midpoint in your career, with the benefit of hindsight you will definitely see the impact if you’ve been indecisive.
As the managing partner of an executive recruiting firm, my job is helping financial professionals put their work in perspective so they get more than just a paycheck. Helping them map out a career path is a good first step. But some don’t know where they want to go, while others don’t know how to get there.
I’ve spent my entire career learning why people work, why they stay put or why they move on. I enjoy helping professionals in the early stages of their career get on track by sharing insights about what’s possible in their future. Providing guidance that helps them translate their hard work into a successful career is why I work.
Unfortunately, sometimes people are their own biggest obstacle to the success they desire. Here’s how and what can be done to mitigate the self-flicted damage caused by blind spots.
This post offers some suggestions to encourage your proactive involvement in managing your career. It also offers some ideas to gain clarity, as well as develop a perspective on why you work. Finally, it discusses why some people appear to prefer just going along for the ride in their career and what happens when they do. In that regards an alternate title could be, “How to voluntarily relinquish managing your career.”
When it come to your career, some of the most counter productive comments you can make are;
1. I’m too busy right now to think about my career. Really?
I hear that a lot. Busy is the new normal. I understand you’re probably focused on your current job right now. But if you’re willing to zoom out for five minutes to see the big picture, it will change your view and provide an entirely different perspective. It’s the difference between stumbling through a dense forest trying to find your way, or elevating up to 5,000 feet to see your current location.
Connecting the dots between your current job and the one you’d like to get in the future is an essential step. Understanding what lies ahead that you’d like to know about now is a helpful exercise. Assessing how your anticipated skill gaps might limit your progression would also be insightful. You may be able to determine if you’re even on the right road to get where you’d like to go.
It will pay many dividends this year and beyond as you begin to understand if you’re where you need to be currently. But none of this will happen as long as you’re too busy to consider your career. Until you gain some perspective about your current job in the context of a your career, you’re likely to see the work you’re doing today as a job; something you do for a paycheck or a place you drive to in the mornings.
Start by adding some context to your perspective by considering which of the following apply to you.
I work so that I can:
Enjoy the lifestyle I want.
Solve problems and add value for my employer.
Do something meaningful, help others, or make a difference in things that matter.
Be intellectually stimulated and grow professionally.
Be part of a team and enjoy the social interaction.
Building on the foundational context from your previous answers will help further develop and refine your perspective. This information is part of a much broader assessement I use to evaluate the fit of a candidate’s current job. In the next section, identify which aspects resonate strongest with you to see how they might apply in your future.
Professionally, most people want to be engaged in challenging work that’s well-suited to their skills. They want a meaningful connection between what they’re working on to see the impact they’re having or difference they’re making. They understand that every job has some less desireable aspects. But the majority of what they currently do is a good match for their interests and capabilities.
Professionally, they also want to work for a manager who invests in their success and explains the how’s and why’s so they understand how their job fits into the bigger picture. They’d also like an opportunity for continued growth and development enabling their upward mobility.
For people who are strongly motivated by money, there are companies who pay more; sometimes significantly more. But they also expect more. So you’ll want to reflect on the real question, “What am I willing to give up in order to get what I want?”
Personally, for many people work is a means to an end. People in this group work so they can get what they want out of life, but they work to live – not live to work. Their jobs can also provide non-financial rewards, like the chance to do something worthwhile with their talents. They invest in others, either volunteering their time or applying the talents they’ve learned at work in other settings to help those less fortunate.
When you’re in the right job, work also provides an opportunity to enrich both your professional and personal development. It sharpens skills that increase your confidence in all areas of your life. Finally, what you do for a living also tends to become part your identity. Though not completely, your job title helps define who you’re becoming. And as you progress in your career, you will also develop insights on your broader purpose in life.
As you reflect on these issues, take note of which considerations are most relevant for you, today. Since most people’s priorities and interests change over time, this should be an annual exercise. Others can ask, “Why do you work?” But perhaps the most important person you’ll want an answer for is yourself.
A second big factor that limits your success is one many people never consider.
2. Waiting until you’re unhappy before thinking about what’s next.
Whether you recognize it or not, this has the potential to be a huge obstacle to your success, especially over the long haul. What makes it particularly sinister is that it operates counter-intuitively to what you may expect.
For example, it’s completely understandable when things are going well at work for your mindset to become, “Why would I consider leaving my job when I’m happy?” But that misses the point. Keeping your options open, at least listening to understand what else may be possible for you, is part of preparing and planning for your future success.
Being open-minded about potential opportunities will definitely enhance your long-term chances of success. Conversely, closing them off can seriously limit your possibilities. It may be tempting to respond with, “I’ll consider other opportunities when I’m ready.” Again, that misses the point. The best opportunities do not come your way just because you’re ready.
Evaluating another opportunity is just that; evaluating. If it’s worth more serious consideration, you can choose to go to the next step. Regardless, it’s your choice, based on what’s best for you. If you have no options, you have no choices.
Evaluating opportunities
A critical ingredient in making this work to your advantage is the ability to intelligently evaluate other opportunities. Unfortunately, many people are deficient in their ability to effectively evaluate another opportunity. Meaningfully comparing the pros and cons of another job to your current job is something you’ll do throughout your career. It’s in your interest to get good at it.
I’ve worked very hard to develop a process that empowers my candidates to gather solid information, enabling them to make relevant comparisons, resulting in an intelligent decision. I’ve put together an insightful series of questions, designed to get to the heart of whether a different opportunity would truly be better for you than your current job.
You’ll want to ask some of these questions before you decide whether or not to interview. Other questions are geared to ask during the interview. Asking the right questions at the right time will optimize your chances to make a wise choice. Yet many people fail to take advantage of the available resources. So they don’t ask the right questions, or don’t know how to correctly interpret the answers. Let me know if you’d like to learn more.
After you evaluate an opportunity, if you decide it’s not for you, pass it on to someone else. Offering seeds of goodwill to someone else often blooms into something bigger for you later on when others return the favor for you.
Why would you consider leaving?
The best time to explore a different opportunity is when you don’t need to find one. When you’re happy in your current job, your standards for evaluating other opportunities are much higher. As your satisfaction level goes down, so do your standards for what’s worthy of your consideration. By waiting until you’re unhappy before considering other options, getting out becomes more important than where you go. The risks of a mistake increase significantly when decisions are driven primarily by the motivation to leave.
Timing is everything.
Doors of opportunity often take time and preparation before they open. It is your good fortune when you are approached to consider them. But they almost never open at a time that’s convenient for you. When opportunity knocks, listen. Closing yourself off from these options over time will limit your career progression. Puttting all your eggs in one basket is risky, which is why options are always good to have.
Change will be the only constant.
Regardless of how happy you are now, things will change.
Frequently, those changes come when you least expect them. A co-worker leaves and part of their work gets added to your job. Your favorite manager transfers and you don’t like the new one. Your company is acquired, or acquires another company. The list of factors that can change your world overnight is endless. If you haven’t experienced it yet, you will.
Other times, the change is more subtle, like over several years. It happens so slow, you may not even notice until you pause long enough to see. You were in a groove at work for a long time, but the groove morphed into a rut. You used to be excited on Sunday night about the upcoming week. Now, Sunday night anticipation has been replaced by the ‘blahs’ or worse, dread.
Your current job is a means to an end; it isn’t the end, even if you’d like it to be! Your career is essentially a journey and your current job is one stop along the way. If you don’t know where you’d like to go, or have a plan to get there, it’s easy to drift off course and not even know.
Considering what may be next for you doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy what you’re currently doing. Cultivate the ability to see beyond your current job to understand how it’s preparing you for your next one.
Recent Comments