Developing Yourself - A New Model

Many people pursue professional development activities with a singular focus on a set of rewards around money, position, prestige and power. I know I did early in my career. Ironically, the best way to move forward fast is to shift your focus away from that, instead focusing on two other areas often ignored; 1) what are your natural talents and 2) what are you passionate about. Here's the new model.

Throughout my career, including a stint as Vice president of Human Resources, I’ve seen hundreds of people make suboptimal professional developmental and career decision driven by an overwhelming need to get ahead, and I’ve done it myself. This can lead to a great deal of frustration, disappointment, and burn out. Once I gained some awareness of my natural talents (tools and resources like Strength Finders are very helpful, as well as candid feedback from peers), gave some serious thought to what I really cared about; my professional passion and aligned my career to those drivers things really began to move for me. The passion piece is the one most often missed, as it often feels too soft and esoteric. It all too easy to say to yourself, “I’m passionate about a lot of things, but not work, that’s why they pay you to do it”. I say it’s hard to be passionate about life if you’re not passionate about what you do 40+ hours a week! Besides, anyone who’s ever really excelled at anything has had to persist through failure, disappointment, setbacks and put in the hours. Your passion is the fuel upon which you must draw on this journey, it’s what keeps you going through all the headwind.

I believe the new model for professional development falls at the intersection of these three areas; your talent, your passion and things people pay money for…