Career all planned out?

Science has shown that we are all hardwired to worry, and who of us can claim not to have gotten anxious about our career path at some point in our lives? Perhaps this is you right now - maybe you had a plan all worked out but it's going awry. Maybe you're anxious because you have no plan! Or maybe everything is going just great. Whoever you are, I want to share a story of what happened when my plan went awry, and some of the things I wish I'd known back then.

Rewind to the 1990s: Apple products weren't cool yet, the Netscape vs Internet Explorer war was in its prime, and a long-haired teenager in the middle of England was nailing that computer nerd look. I knew exactly where I wanted to go in my career: Unix Systems Admin. Those scenes in the movies where there's a sea of computers in a company basement that a scruffy guy looks after - that was what I was rooting for.

I had this plan for years and I spent an unhealthy amount of my free time tinkering with computers. After graduating, my first job landed me in a suitably close position - finally - I could get paid for doing what I loved. I was sent on lots of training courses, and learned loads, but then one day it hit me: I didn't want to be just learning about this stuff - I wanted to be creating it. It was like a ton of brick, in an instant my grand career plan evaporated. I’d had this thing all worked for years, all through high school, all through university, and now it was irrelevant – I had miscalculated…

I was a little lost for a while - not quite knowing where to go next, but I formulated new plan, got a new job that I loved.... and then had to leave it for family reasons. As the next few years ticked by, I noticed that life had a habit of throwing curve balls. Despite being a huge fan of plans and 'clarity', I slowly but surely stopped trying to follow defined career paths, and instead decided to just create my own. I stopped worrying about job titles and 'progression' and focussed on developing different skills. There was some continuity of course, but broadly speaking I took positions that really interested me without worrying too much about the path it led me on. I identified my weaknesses and worked to overcome them.

I have to confess it was a little unsettling at times: There was always that colleague who’d devoted their life to some field and amassed a depth of knowledge that frankly, made me feel like an imposter. But I also discovered that I was using skills and techniques from across the breadth of my experience, and those skills set me apart.?Be it knowledge of how to talk to customers, pitching to the defense community, or writing software. I found myself being referred to as a 'hybrid', able to take on roles that others simply couldn't.

I recall a professor at the university giving a career talk once, and commenting that it was university strategy to hire staff from other institutions rather than from their own students - because those coming from elsewhere brought something different. I am a mere 20 years into my career but from what I’ve learned so far – you can be just as successful making your own career path vs following ‘the norm’, and I wish I'd known that earlier. Some of the most interesting people I've ever met have taken very unique paths, and their paths have brought them a wealth of experience you don't expect.

It's well known that 'range' enables people to adapt better, abstract from their experiences, and learn new skills quicker [1]. So if you ever find your career not quite going as planned, my advice is that one thing you shouldn't do is worry about 'the plan' or that job title, and instead work out what truly excites you. That doesn't mean you should never form a plan again, but do get more comfortable that plans change. To quote Benjamin Hardley[2]:

Too many people think creating a vision is about nailing down exactly what they want in the next 20 years. The problem with this mega long-term approach to goal setting is that it actually slows your potential.

Instead of having a pre-set plan of what he wants to do, [entrepreneur] Tim Ferriss executes 3–6-month experiments that he’s currently excited about. He told Darren Hardy in an interview that he has no clue what the outcome of his experiments might be. So there’s no point in making long-term plans. He has no clue what doors will open up, and he wants to be open to the best possibilities.

But his why doesn’t change.

But what do you do if you have no idea where to go next? One thing you can do is start with your Why [3]. It's a fun exercise and might reveal things you never realized. I've put a few great links in the resources section below which I wish I'd known about when my plan went awry. And if you think some tangent is just two severe, check out the fascinating story of Scott Harrison, who pivoted from a hard-partying club promoter to a life-saving charity founder - few changes in direction can live up to his [4]!

Resources

[1] Range: How generalists triumph in a world of specialists, via Amazon

[2] Benjamin Hardley Quote

[3] Simon Sinek - What's your why and where do you find it? Via the Jordan Harbinger Show

[4] THE Manhatten club promote turned charity founder, via the Jordan Harbinger Show