What's keeping us from making career choices where we will offer up the best of us? What's keeping us from choosing work that allows us to maximize our contribution?
At age 5, I decided that I wanted to be a cowboy. Roy Rogers was my first hero and being a cowboy looked cool. I liked the idea of being a hero, having a loyal dog and horse. As you can see in the photo I had the boots, hat, gun, and dog. But I really was “all hat and no cattle”. The problem was that when I found out what being a “real cowboy” entailed, I didn’t like it so much. When I discovered that being a cowboy involved camping with very few Hampton Inns in sight, I reconsidered my choice. My first efforts on a horse didn’t go well either. To this day when I get on a horse, they bend their neck back around and look at me as if to say, “Who is this guy, and what are you doing on my back?” And the idea of jerking a baby calf off its feet at a full gallop, then applying a hot brand to it’s backside, well, that still just seems wrong to me. Over time, I found that the only rodeo I really enjoyed visiting was Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.
A lot of people have false starts like this in their careers. One of my favorite career discovery books is Nicholas Lore’s The Pathfinder. He writes:
“If you are like most of us, when you attempt to make career decisions, you imagine careers that might be interesting (doctor, lawyer, Indian Chief). Your mind hops from one potentially interesting career to another. Your romantic imagination kicks in. You think of all the positive aspects of the job: “Let’s see, I really like the idea of becoming an Indian Chief. It seems like an exciting job, working outside, nature all around, not a boring desk job, great clothes, etc.” Then after a while, you have an attack of negative considerations, an attack of ‘Yeahbut’ thoughts: ‘I’m allergic to feathers, those cold winter nights in the teepee, and what about the cavalry attacks?’ You are left with a veritable blizzard of mental images and opinions about potential careers yet are no nearer to making a definite decision about which one to pursue. What’s worse, using this method, things tend to get foggier rather than clearer.”
Nicholas Lore continues:
“When you first think of a new potential career, it is an idea as pure as newly fallen snow. Then as you think of it more, your opinions, both positive and negative, tend to get stuck onto the original picture. After a while, whenever the thought of that particular career surfaces in your mind, all you see is all the stuff stuck to it. When you think ‘Indian Chief,’ up pops a picture of a cavalry attack.”
I call this the “Do, Be, Do, Be, Do” Deception. We confuse being something, which we imagine is very cool, with actually doing it. Many times our choice is built around a desire for fame and fortune. Sometimes we pick a career not because it will make us rich or famous but because we believe that we will be highly esteemed by others.
But strengths strategist Marcus Buckingham rightly observes, “doing trumps being every time.” Similarly, football coach Vince Lombardi used to talk about “loving the daily grind”. Before you make a career choice or career change, find out what you will actually do for 6, 12, or 18 hours a day to be successful.
I will blog about several ways of doing this in the future. These "I-Sight" methods of career insight could save you years of grief. But one method is Internship and Interim Work. Dustin is a friend of our family, actually, a family member by marriage. He got good grades all through high school, college and was considering medical school. But he wasn't sure how he would deal with the reality of blood and body parts. To avoid spending a small fortune and wasting several years of education, he trained to become a medic on an ambulance team. Once he made it through that without a problem he enrolled in medical school. This was a wonderful example and you should be able to figure out something similar to get insight into a career you are considering.
Your Moment of Truth: Make sure you pick a career where the tasks and roles involve activities that you actually like doing, generally for long periods of time.
No comments:
Post a Comment