The slides above (click on each slide to make it larger) and the following are excerpts from my ebook, Invest in Yourself, which I selfishly feel is one of the best personal development ebooks available for you to read.
Are you happy with what you are doing in life? A simple question that only needs a yes or no answer. Do you drag yourself to work every day or do you look forward to applying your skills and talents in an environment that energizes you? Do you work to get paid or do you work to exercise your God given talents? (The money is a reward for your hard work) Every day, are you honoring God, your family and yourself by pouring your talents and skills onto society to help others and to improve cultures, systems, and processes?
If you are upper thirties or early forties, is your job what you want (to do) from now until retirement? Can you honestly see yourself in your current job at the age of retirement?
Do you dread Mondays? Do you come home at night in a bad frame of mind?
Do you dread Mondays? Do you come home at night in a bad frame of mind?
What do you really enjoy doing? Are you passionate about your career? Or do you only have a job? How does the work you do affect your personality? Do you come home energized or does the work sap your energy? Do you hate taking orders? Do you like to be led or do you like to lead?
If you are twenty something, are you focused on your strengths and talents or are you focused on making money? Is your work an extension of your studies in college or are in you in a completely different arena? Do you sometimes feels that you majored in the wrong subject or do you know for sure that you spent four years preparing for your career? Are you preparing to have children? If so, are you in a career that fulfills you and makes you a better person.
Do you work to exercise your talents or do you work for money? Do you get paid for what you know or do or do you get a set amount that only changes once per year?
What drives you crazy in life? What pleases you in life? How do these items manifest themselves in your career? Positively and negatively?
I will tell you how to decide on a career. But first, you must understand yourself. You must know what you like to do and don’t like to do. You must be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. If you can’t perform this introspection, then the questions will be hard to answer.
If you can analyze yourself, sit down with a paper and pencil and follow the process outlined below. I developed this process because I was in the same position you are in right now. I was thirty nine with three children working in a job for a paycheck that was not enough to provide for my family. My wife worked in a job that made her unhappy. I was a hostage to my job. I was bonded to the monthly check. I knew my strengths and weaknesses but still remained in the daily grind called the rat race.
There are countless reasons to not versus few reasons to pursue a goal. Seemingly the reasons not to do something dwarf the reasons to act. Needing a paycheck. Health insurance. Being able to pay bills. Sure we need to satisfy daily necessities but what I have learned from experience and from reading and listening is your career must be what you want to do. It must bring out the best in you. Your inner being must escape your pores to guide your career. The work should be done with talents provided by God. Therefore, we work to honor him. If you aren’t, then first, you are ignoring God; secondly, you are penalizing yourself.
Why waste your talent? My father once told me that people will pay you for what you know. I never listened to him but now know it to be true. Like an athlete that practices his skills, you must practice your skills every day. If not, they sit dormant and help no one.
I am a big proponent of the five why concept. If you have a problem, ask yourself why five times. This line of questioning will get you to the root of your problem fast. For example, if you are unhappy at home, ask yourself why. I have done so often and the majority of times answered that my job was making me unhappy. Why is my job making me unhappy? I often listed a multitude of reasons and most dealt with crappy leadership at work and the environment that surrounded me. Over time, I knew I wanted to work on my own but was afraid to do so. I even started my own company with an aggressive partner only to succumb to the reasons why not to do it. He was frustrated with me. We parted ways with him starting his own company which is now flourishing.
I am a big proponent of the five why concept. If you have a problem, ask yourself why five times. This line of questioning will get you to the root of your problem fast. For example, if you are unhappy at home, ask yourself why. I have done so often and the majority of times answered that my job was making me unhappy. Why is my job making me unhappy? I often listed a multitude of reasons and most dealt with crappy leadership at work and the environment that surrounded me. Over time, I knew I wanted to work on my own but was afraid to do so. I even started my own company with an aggressive partner only to succumb to the reasons why not to do it. He was frustrated with me. We parted ways with him starting his own company which is now flourishing.
A career is the embodiment of what you do with your skills and talents, likes and dislikes. Your career captures who you are. A coach. A teacher. An engineer. A job is what you do within the career. At the micro level, it is the daily display of your skills and talents. For the job to be correct, the career must be correct. The career doesn’t just apply to the work you do. It applies to what you did to help society and others that interacted with you. For example, for years, my job was to be an engineer in a manufacturing plant. Every day, I went to work, sat at a desk, and did engineering stuff. When I went home, I was just a father and husband. I was not an engineer. As I matured, I developed a love of research and analysis. I went back to graduate school and obtained a masters degree in statistics. I saw my career as being a statistician. I loved analyzing data at work but also loved applying my talents in data analysis outside of work. In short, my career is a statistician. I knew for my long term happiness, what I did every day had to be in this career direction.
The Process for Deciding What to Do for a Career and a Job within a Career (see slides above for example)
1. Make a list of the things you like to do. Write them in bullet format. Each line should contain a verb and an object.
2. Make a list of the things you do not like to do in your personal life or the things that you do not like about your current job.
3. Go through the “don’t like” list and where possible, convert to the “like to do” list.
4. Go through the “like to do” list and mark the things that you love to do (passion=love) and the things you like to do (a little less passion). You are trying to separate out what your passion is. Be honest about your passion. Think hard at this step as it dictates what is to follow.
5. Take the “love to do” things and simplify the list. Try to boil each thing into a verb and an object.
6. Make two columns: verb and object. Write the verbs from step five and the corresponding objects in the columns. The verbs indicate what you should be doing in your career. The objects define the arenas to apply your skills.
7. Organize the verbs in a hierarchy. Does one verb precede another? How do the verbs relate in the totality of what you love to do?
8. Now fill in the objects with the corresponding verbs. This is the blueprint for your career. Study it. Become comfortable with it. Post it on your wall if you need a constant reminder. If you were honest, then this is what you should be doing.
9. Now, write a career mission statement using the verbs and objects and their relationship depicted in step seven. Don’t leave this step until you like what you have written.
10. Form the mission statement; make a list of the criteria that your career must meet and criteria that you like for it to meet. A Word of advise: Leave family issues out of the must section. Why? If you pick the right career, then you will be a better spouse and parent.
11. At this point, the career may become crystal clear. If so, congratulations.
12. If the way is not clear, then make a list of career opportunities that interest you or you know about.
13. At this point, I recommend taking a personality test to confirm what you have said and concluded about yourself. There is no worse critic than thyself so this objective analysis hopefully confirms what you know to be true.
14. Write down what you will do tomorrow as a result of the above process. Start working immediately. Don’t wait.
1. Make a list of the things you like to do. Write them in bullet format. Each line should contain a verb and an object.
2. Make a list of the things you do not like to do in your personal life or the things that you do not like about your current job.
3. Go through the “don’t like” list and where possible, convert to the “like to do” list.
4. Go through the “like to do” list and mark the things that you love to do (passion=love) and the things you like to do (a little less passion). You are trying to separate out what your passion is. Be honest about your passion. Think hard at this step as it dictates what is to follow.
5. Take the “love to do” things and simplify the list. Try to boil each thing into a verb and an object.
6. Make two columns: verb and object. Write the verbs from step five and the corresponding objects in the columns. The verbs indicate what you should be doing in your career. The objects define the arenas to apply your skills.
7. Organize the verbs in a hierarchy. Does one verb precede another? How do the verbs relate in the totality of what you love to do?
8. Now fill in the objects with the corresponding verbs. This is the blueprint for your career. Study it. Become comfortable with it. Post it on your wall if you need a constant reminder. If you were honest, then this is what you should be doing.
9. Now, write a career mission statement using the verbs and objects and their relationship depicted in step seven. Don’t leave this step until you like what you have written.
10. Form the mission statement; make a list of the criteria that your career must meet and criteria that you like for it to meet. A Word of advise: Leave family issues out of the must section. Why? If you pick the right career, then you will be a better spouse and parent.
11. At this point, the career may become crystal clear. If so, congratulations.
12. If the way is not clear, then make a list of career opportunities that interest you or you know about.
13. At this point, I recommend taking a personality test to confirm what you have said and concluded about yourself. There is no worse critic than thyself so this objective analysis hopefully confirms what you know to be true.
14. Write down what you will do tomorrow as a result of the above process. Start working immediately. Don’t wait.
For more instruction on personal improvement, I invite you to take my personal improvement course from The Center for Process Improvement. Please go to www.cpionlinecourses.com
Stephen
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