When I was researching about career paths many years ago, I made the same flawed assumption that many people still make today: I was really researching “available jobs” and not a “career path.”
My confusing a career path with job openings made for inefficient professional development. I put on mental blinders during the exploratory stage when I should be brainstorming instead. As a result, I went from job to job (and mistakenly calling each one “a career”) over the years and wondered why I still didn’t feel like I was where I needed to be.
I didn’t feel like I was where I needed to be because I didn’t know where I wanted to be. I used each job as the litmus test to see if “this was IT” and I would finally settle down into the career that would satisfy me. This approach can work, if many elements of that job happens to satisfy that craving for purpose within you. For example, some people are geniuses at coordinating resources and people and time. They derive a deep sense of purpose and satisfaction when coordinating. When they work in a job that demands this skill most of the time, they work in joy. Jobs are created by people who need certain skills. Most of the “career assessment” tests try to match as many of your interests as possible to a catalog of available jobs requiring certain skills.
I needed to create my own career to suit my personality and passions, with the caveat that this “career” be fluid to accommodate wherever my personality or passions evolve. I’m one of those people who still haven’t quite pinpointed my passion as “an object” in itself. My passion is very much process-oriented, and because I can be interested in different things at different times, my passion can never become “an object.” A crude example of passion as an object is a love for painting trees. You can be painting flowers or landscapes, but when you paint trees, you experience profound joy. Continuing with this crude example, my passion as a process is like a love for painting, painting what, I’m still figuring out.
Alvaro asked what was the common thread amongst my multiple interests. An immediate answer to the question is “me.” I’m the common thread amongst my many interests ranging from web design to blogging to performing improv to entrepreneurialism to learning about what makes people “tick” to advocacy to watching good movies to thinking about purpose of life to laughing until my belly aches. These are all expressions from my attempt to understand myself and the world.
Now you get a glimpse of the problem I face when creating a “career path” for me. I bet some of you know exactly what I mean, especially those of you polymaths who are infinitely smarter than I am.
Try this exercise: start with a blank piece of paper and write in the middle:
| CEO, {Your name} |
Next, Assume {Your name} organization is plush with funding for the next 10 years, due to a recent series of financing that has gotten {Your name} organization $1 billion each year for the next 10 years.
Now, write down everything you like to do as CEO of {Your Name}. Not what you think you should do or probably ought to do, but what you would feel joy when doing. You don’t have to be neat, either, just put down words or phrases anywhere on the paper. You can even write backwards or with your other hand if you’d like.
When you take a look at this piece of paper as a composite whole, you will be closer to a career path that is more true for you than the best career assessment tests.
P.S. If you feel like sharing your brainstorming with me, you can fax my private line at 908-663-2628. Remember to include your email address on the cover page so I can write you back.
