Your Career Journey Starts With 'You'

As I have mentioned previously, starting this week I am going to share my thoughts on career building and career mapping. This is quite a big topic that needs to be discussed in-depth therefore instead of sharing my thoughts in just one article, this is going to be a series of sorts. Think of it as a journey. Everything in life is a journey, including your career. And just like every other journey - it requires a destination. I believe everyone has their own journey and destination and I want to share on how we can determine the best destination for ourselves. If we know where we are going, we are not going to be distracted along the way.

Determining our destination is not as easy as it seems because it seems so obvious that we all want to get to the top. We often see our career like a mountain that we need to climb, and we can only find success or fulfilment once we’ve reached the summit. That’s not necessarily true, however. For some, yes, the destination is the top but for others, we may even like it more to be somewhere in the middle. The career destination of each person is going to be different, but it is also easier for us to look at other people’s destinations and think that those destinations are also ours. After all, it’s hard to figure out what we really want when there is so much noise and input from everyone and everything around us.

"So how do we figure out what we want, and the best destination for us?"?

In my experience, before we can determine where we want to go - we need to have a keen understanding of who we really are. I’m not really talking about our personality. Of course there’s nothing wrong with gaining understanding of our personality traits by taking tests such as Myers-Briggs or any other Personality Tests, but having a keen understanding of who we are goes beyond that. Knowing ourselves means knowing our core values - the values that make us who we are. What do we believe in? What do we stand for? What are we willing to sacrifice? What matters most in life for us? The answers to these questions are going to be different for everyone.?

For example, if what matters most in life for us is our family; we may want to set career goals that will enable us to still have a thriving home life. That may mean we choose to work in larger organizations that can provide more stability than, say, a start-up or smaller agencies that will require a lot of time and effort to grow. Or, maybe you are a person who values people and investing in people. You may want to place yourself on a path to leadership, because that’s where you’ll be most fulfilled. On the other hand, if you value perfection and quality in your own work, you may want to steer clear of a leadership role since it will require you to delegate a lot of your work to others. Forcing yourself to be in a leadership position just because everyone else is in one will only make you unhappy in your career.

The right choice for your career destination depends on how well you know yourself, and what you value in life. For that, you need to look within yourself and not from external sources. At the end of the day, you will be the one living your life, not other people. Choose wisely. Once you’ve figured out who you are then you can ask yourself what you want from life and from your career. How do we do that? I will discuss more about that next week, so make sure you don’t miss it.?