What do I want from my Professional Life?
What does my Career mean?
How important is it to me?
Is it merely the right mix or a sum total of my education, skills, learnings, job role, team, workplace, compensation, years of work experience and organization? Well, technically, YES!
But not really, isn’t it? So, what is missing?
I don’t feel a sense of fulfilment or happiness or satisfaction or achievement. How does one define it and measure it?
Now, for all the intellectual and left brained people this may sound really illogical but I feel that the most beautiful things & possessions in life are those that can only be felt and experienced. Life is nothing but a sum total of all the experiences put together. With me so far?
I have seen successful people believe in one common thing – ‘A career is nothing but a journey and the way you experience it.’ This brings a better perspective on things, doesn’t it? So, now we are talking about building a great experience professionally that may comprise of learnings, practice, challenges, achievements, hard-work, success, abundance, stress, satisfaction, failures, fulfilment, adventure, excitement, fear, rejection, confidence, growth, contribution, uncertainty and so on.
Allow me to use an analogy to bring things into better light. When we set out for a trip, we do it for a lot of reasons-
-We need a break
-We need a change
-We want to see a new place or a new adventure
-We want to unwind and/or break free from the routine etc.
Most of us may have some or all these reasons to decide on a destination and then go on a trip/vacation. Now, please answer this – if you don’t experience the trip as anticipated, what do you do? Do you sulk or cancel the vacation, thinking that it is not what you anticipated it to be? Or do you explore more? Don’t you go on inquiring, checking out new places, trying new things, new food and finding out what more is there to explore? Well, I remember doing this often. When my experience doesn’t match my expectations or desires, there is one thing that I definitely DON’T DO – SETTLE!
Similarly, as you move along in your Career path, and things don’t seem to go as planned or expected, sulking or settling for whatever you have should be a strict NO-NO. No matter where you are in your career…DON’T SETTLE FOR LESS THAN WHAT YOU WANT AND DESERVE!
Keep looking, keep exploring unless you find what your heart desires.
The next logical question would be, how do I ‘experience’ my career? The answer to this question is another question – What are you looking for?
Are you someone who desires stability or adventure? Do you get excited by a lot of learning or do you like to lead and be an expert in your field? Maybe you just want to contribute to the society?
Once you find out what is the first or the top 2 driving factors in your life or what is it that you are looking for – you must consider aligning your career goals and path to it.
So then what do you want from your career or professional life? Let’s reiterate the steps-
- Do not settle!
- Pick up your top 2 driving factors/motivators.
- Craft a Career Plan aligning with the motivators discovered.
- Focus on building an experience that you want around your Career.
- Don’t look back!
This may seem like an over-simplified approach, but trust me, sometimes we are so used to solving the big questions/ problems that we end up overlooking the ones that are simple with simple answers!
Here is the good news! You need not be alone in this and you don’t need to figure it out all by yourself. A Career Coach can assist you with showing what your heart desires and what you truly want from your career the most! Consider getting help from a Coach who’s trained in getting it right for you!
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