Three most important things - thing 2
Dave Cordle - The Career Mountaineer
I enable stuck professionals to create more joy and less stress at work | 1-2-1 coaching | change career | less stress | career success | CV | Interview | Ideal Job | Teachers | Professionals | Students
In the last issue we started looking at the three key things you need to be able to do to follow the career paths you want to follow and create success in the way that you define success.
In other words, the things that will be most helpful in creating work you love that supports the lifestyle you choose.
Thing1, if you remember, was about your values, the things that work needs to do for you. It’s top of my list because it’s the thing that most people just don’t pay enough attention to. It’s half of the profile of your ideal job right now, and the other half brings us on to Thing 2
Thing 2: Your Contributions
This is where the focus almost always goes as soon as we talk about getting a job. You’ve probably said it and I’m sure you’ve heard people around you say it: what are your transferable skills and qualities? ?What are your achievements?
The problem with achievements
Our achievements are where we find those skills and personal qualities. They are, of course, the things we demonstrate on CVs to get job interviews and at performance appraisals to get the best outcome we can.
But there’s a problem with achievements!
The problem is that, most of the time, when we think of achievements we only focus on the big things that made a big impact. In terms of your career, everything you do can be considered as an achievement. Even those everyday small tasks that you describe as “it’s just part of my job” or, “its just what I do”.
When we use the word “Contributions” it opens up our minds to include all the ways in which we contribute at work.
Contributions – an insight into your ideal job
Your contributions include everything you do for your organisation and in your work.
When you look into the detail of all of those things, you’ll find that in each one you use a range of different skills and demonstrate a variety of personal qualities. It’s part of what makes you unique and valuable to your organisation and customers.
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By investing time in this area, you’ll start to notice which are the skills you are good at and enjoy using (your strengths), which are the ones you really want in your role, and which (if any) you no longer enjoy using and want to manage out of your work.
Putting it into practice
By creating stories about the things you do, you will start to identify patterns in the skills and qualities you use most and those you want to develop or move on from. It can be useful, as with the values, to identify your drivers so that you know which are essential for you to have in your work, which are nice to have, and know whether there are any to avoid.
I developed The W-H-O Model (? Dave Cordle) as a framework for understanding Who you are. In the first levels it helps you define your ideal role in terms of your values and contributions. At deeper levels its about your core process and vision, mission and purpose.
For our purposes now, focusing on the W, What you have done, and the H, how you did it, will help you create those stories.
If you want to take things further
If you’d like to really take control of your career and get in-depth on these topics, The Values Journey and The Contributions Journey (short practical on-line courses) are both on Summit 1 of The Career Base Camp. Look back at issue 1 to learn about The 5 Summits of Career Success.
At the moment, the full Career Base Camp program is only ￡7.99 per month with no lock-in. We’re aware that this is seriously good value and the investment for the program will be increasing in May, so sign up not to lock that rate in.
Ok, advert over! Other ways to take things further (for free):
Coming up in Career Gear
In the next issue we’ll be looking at Thing 3 Can you guess what it is?
Are there any other topics your questions you’d like covered in Career Gear? Let me know and I’ll plan them in.
I help people sit up and sort out their career futures at 50+
11 个月Dave, I like your focus on contributions rather than achievements, not only because (as you say) it helps us to look at the smaller but important things rather than just at the big impressive ones, but also because it gives a sense of how we operate as part of something bigger than us and not just for ourselves. The best colleagues I’ve known were all seriously good and consistent contributors.