On jobs and careers, passions, needs and happiness

How can you tell if you have a job or a career? Can you have both?

Well, yes you can. A job is something you do. A job is a transaction – you provide something (your labour) and in exchange you receive payment (money and perhaps other benefits).

Many people who have jobs say they have careers – perhaps they climb the corporate ladder, or become highly skilled at what they do. But unless they would do this without any external reward, they don’t really have a career.

A job is what you do. It is always negotiable. A career is who you are. It is not negotiable.

You are welcome to dispute this. I am sure many of you will. You might say, but I need money to survive, to pay the mortgage, to pay for the kids’ school, etc. But, how much money do you need to do these things? How much do you really, really need? Chances are, you are sacrificing a career for nothing - careers provide an income as well, even if it is not in conventional ways.

Many people who say they have careers are not really happy. This is a real shame. Now I am not saying that if you have a career, every day will be like heaven on a stick. It won’t, and that is life. But if you really have a career, the days that aren’t so good – the days that challenge your determination, that question your ability, that push you on to greater success (on your terms) – these are the days that are most important of all.

A career is not something you drop after you leave the office (I don’t mean taking work home that you haven’t finished, because you are really doing two people’s work). A career is something that you carry with you – it is aligned with your purpose, your soul, and you find yourself doing things that continually reinforce who you are, even when you are ‘off the job’.

Everybody has a career, because everyone has a purpose, a raison-d’etre. When this is aligned with your job, it is an amazing thing. You might not be consciously aware of it, but if you are developing and exhibiting your career on a daily basis, you are most likely content with life most of the time. You are probably less competitive too, and more willing to share your knowledge with others, because careers are not selfish.

Another thing about career is that it is driven internally. People give you a job. You develop your career. Can you see the difference?

Can everyone have a career? Yes they can. In a developed country, we all have a choice. 

I have had jobs I have loved, and jobs I have hated, and some that were just OK. In my younger years I looked for jobs that matched my interests and suited my needs at the time. I enjoyed working in the inner city area before I had my kids, and commuting an hour each way was no problem. When we got into family mode, I looked for a job closer to home. I moved up the ladder and was happy enough.

I didn’t have a notion of career until I was in my forties. It was a culmination of a lot of things. Losing a job I loved and enjoyed going to, the collapse of my industry, finding a new talent, and a lot of soul searching and trying out of jobs that just didn't cut it.

I’m glad I found out what my career was. It changed my outlook on life completely. I no longer worried about whether I was ‘good enough’ in other people’s eyes, I set my own benchmarks. I have allowed myself to take risks, to succeed and to fail, and to label all of these as ‘experience’.

I’m glad I have a career, because at this stage of human evolution, jobs come and go quickly, and provide the least stability experienced since the Great Depression since the 1930s (except this time the instability is not going away). In this climate, losing a job is extra hard – there are financial consequences, of course, but the greatest barrier is related to the loss of identity that having a job brings.

We live in a time of constant and dramatic change. Life, and work, is unpredictable. Other than saving for a rainy day (something that is becoming more and more imperative), we have to face the fact that the future holds no guarantees. It is best if we all take the view that no job is safe; there is no course, no profession, no organisation that will provide us with a livelihood for the rest of our working lives.

 So, to the main point of this post: 

Having a career is excellent insulation against the vagaries of the labour market. It is the new 'essential' quality. It also helps you look at things more objectively, to be less beaten back when things go wrong. It is a reason to keep going, to find new ways of doing what you love, to be joyful about your life.

Let me explain.  Or rather, let someone else.

I’ve been given permission to quote a young man who has, in my humble opinion, a fine career – Daniel Reeves, a musician. Maybe you have heard of him? Maybe not. It doesn’t matter, his happiness does not hinge on acceptance by others (but do go and see him if he happens to be playing in your town, you won't regret it). Daniel expresses the true sense of career in these words:

I’ve spent half my adult life working on roads and the other half has been spent driving them. Although I have nights where I’d just love to crawl into my own bed and have the pleasure of a peaceful and uninterrupted 8 hours sleep, to reach in the fridge to grab my food instead of an esky in the back of the car, or when I stop at a road side shop and hope that the food hasn’t been in the warmer for hours and that I remain healthy for my show later that night. It really doesn’t matter if my change room is a bunch of trees on the side of the road before I get into town after spending all day driving, or when I visit my life’s possessions at a storage shed to grab what I accidently packed into the wrong box instead of getting it from my room. The journey and the experience of entertaining people by playing music is always so rewarding, whether I play a song that makes people dance or whether I play a deep and meaningful song that at some point or another has kept someone strong enough to move forward and keep going. The journey is always rewarding and full of rich life experiences. 

As a musician you soon realise there’s nights where there’s big crowds and nights where there’s not so big crowds. Nights with much applause, and nights with only the dishwasher humming along behind the pub bar after you strike the last chord of your song. But the journey and the experience are always calling. No matter how uplifted and on top of the world you are, no matter how tired and exhausted you are, there’s this life force of its own, this world of noise and beauty which just keeps driving you along.

Sometimes my wallet is over flowing with cash and other times it’s praying for rain. Like any role in life, there’s the good and then there’s the other side that goes along with it. But I could never swap how rich and rewarding this life experience is. 

My wish for everyone reading this post is that hasn't already done so - find your career – it really is a blast!

Thoughts on passion and whether a job is just a job after all

 In my professional circle, there has been a lot of discussion lately around the topic of career satisfaction; this mainly comes down to an argument between the people who think we should each find our passion and let that drive our careers, and the people who say 'work is work' and it is not meant to be enjoyed.

The careers people on the 'passion' side argue that we spend more of our lives at work than in any other area, so we might as well love what we do. These are the people who usually believe we are put on the earth for a purpose, and it is our duty to work out what this is. If we don't do this duty to ourselves, we are more likely to become stressed and ill - physically and mentally. There have been many books devoted to this subject, some from career practitioners but many from the life coaching, motivational speakers/writers, and the self-help industry as well. 

Some people (myself included) have found this argument persuasive; although I didn't actually read it in a book, it was more a matter of listening to that small voice inside me that gradually grew bigger and more all-pervasive. There is an element of liberation in following one's passion, of 'treading one's own path' (thanks Barefoot Investor!), but it can also be hard work (mainly in trying to keep a roof over your head and food on the table while carving new territory), so it is no surprise that many people have preferred to view work as something that must be endured..

The most pervasive argument for work as something to be endured is a transactional one. There are only so many jobs in the world - what would happen to society if everyone just did what they wanted? Who would collect the garbage, hold the 'Stop' and 'Slow' road signs up in all weathers while work is being done? Who would clean the public toilets? (oh, wait - we have technology for all those things now).

Whether or not the transactional argument is true, most of the reasons relate back to our society, how we want to live and what we are prioritising. As a society, we value wealth, material possessions and competition over family, community and equality. This is a harsh truth that cannot be disputed. We like money and the type of freedom it brings. Thanks to the scaremongering going on in political circles and the superannuation industry, we now believe that we are going to live a long time and we are going to need lots of money to do it - we'd better store it away now or we will be living on the streets, old and incontinent, with no one to look after us. Short of winning the lottery or becoming a game show champion, we can only do this one way - by working hard and getting lots of money so we can store it away till later. Yes it is true - the Protestant Work Ethic is alive and well!

I propose a rethink on both these extremes. It is about balance. It involves following our hearts/intuition/gut feel to an extent while paying attention to opportunities. Getting locked into one, unsupported but possibly romantic, fixed idea is fraught with dangers. 

To avoid the tragedy that comes from a life devoid of any sense of purpose, the first thing to do is to get in touch with who you are and what you want RIGHT NOW! It's really not hard - you just need some space and time so you can think clearly. Write down some key points; draw a picture, talk to a non-judgemental friend over coffee.

The job market is constantly shifting, so it is really hard to make long-term plans. Also, over  the course of our lives, as we grow and change (along with our priorities) we need to adopt a 'fluid' approach to our careers rather than the fixed one that many of us still buy into. I am amazed when I hear well-meaning adults still saying things to young people like 'Do this or that course and you will be set up for life', or  'Go to uni and get a law/medicine degree first, then when you are earning good money you can do a bit of art on the side.' You can pretty well guarantee that the young person in question will have killed off any artistic talent well before the end of his/her course, and do you know how many hours young lawyers and doctors work? These are definitely not just jobs 'to do', they involve a great deal of attention and many sacrifices - they are important jobs for those who have the heart to do them well.

If you are a young person reading this, remember, you have all the time in the world to make your career something fantastic! Don't jump into the first thing you think of, and especially do not do a course just because you got  the marks to do it! That is the first bad mistake that is easily avoided. Give passion a little bit of a chance to have its say as well as all those other, boring messages you keep hearing from those who want to lock you up in a job title for the rest of your life. As financial advisor Scott Pape so wisely says, 'Tread your own path' (But I did say it first, many years ago now).

If you are an older person who is in a new career stage, remember - your career has been building all your life, whether you have been in work or not. It is a continuum, and your past has relevance - even though it might feel like it. You have a wealth of experience, skills, successes and failures who have made you who you are. Use this as an opportunity rather than a threat and you will be energised rather than encumbered by change.

My next blog will be about how to be over 50 and attractive to employers. Yes it is possible!

Julie Farthing Enters the Career Planning Debate

Having spent over a year treading a new, more elevated career path, as I revitalise this blog, I think it is timely that I enter the great debate that has raged over the past twelve months or so about career planning.

Planning now appears to be the dirty word in career development. I am not sure whether Jim Bright started the debate, however he has certainly been creating a strong argument in support of the idea career planning is a worthless activity. The cynic in me says this has more than a little to do with putting a bigger stamp on his own work and his recently co-authored book on chaos career theory. I do have a lot of respect for Jim, mind you, and he raises some good points, but I think maybe the time has come for a more balanced view on the topic.

Planning is not everything; making inflexible plans is downright stupid. So much of what happens in the world is unpredictable, and we need to be able to change our minds as often as is sensible to do so, as new information comes in.

However, strategic planning has its place, especially in significant and long-term career management, as do a whole raft of other strategies. In this post I would like to raise some pertinent points about career planning that seem to have got lost in the great debate. My own career story is a case in point. For many years I worked at the pointy end of careers, assisting people who were long-term unemployed, or who had significant barriers that prevented them from pursuing the career of their choice, or, often, any career at all. I was highly successful at this: doctors from the Middle East became well-paid factory workers, young people with missing limbs found work in retail and office environments, older workers were provided basic business training - I could go on forever, the outcomes were as varied as the people themselves. Usually, my clients were grateful and happy to be working and thanked me for my help; if they didn't particularly like the first job they got, they came back and I helped them to plan steps that would move them closer to their dream job.I was a natural, I had no formal training but found I was very good at what I did and was rewarded by it on a daily basis.

Around the turn of the century all this changed - the government no longer cared whether people were happy in their work, or how we helped them; it was all about the numbers. At the same time I started to wonder if there wasn't more to this career business. What could we could do to assist our clients to have more meaningful lives? After all, there are so many opportunities, why shouldn't people have the opportunity to pursue their ideal career? External change creates exciting opportunities, but internal change - that gets us ready to respond to new opportunities - requires planning! After all, we can't become a doctor without doing the required training, we can't work overseas without the right permits, and we can't become rich without saving. Some things just don't happen on their own, and often we drown in all the necessary steps, not to mention other's negativity ('You can't do that!' 'There are no jobs in x!'), so we give up before we have really begun.Career planning is an important step in confirming a career direction, or indeed, in determining that a career direction is not realistic or likely to be achieved.

Around a decade ago I set about finding out how I could do more meaningful work with clients in a range of ways (all planned), by doing some post graduate courses (5 to date), by joining professional associations and having conversations with other career people who were thinking similarly, and by learning about a range of career tools, including getting accredited to use the MBTI (R), Strong II (R), and DiSC instruments. These days I use these sparingly but strategically, as part of my work with clients, but these are never 'all' I do.

Along the way, I began developing my own 'theory' about careers - it is not new (nothing is!), but it is about story, and how this can be used to assist people to see a shape to their lives and to reshape, further shape them. More about this is available at www.storypractitioner.blogspot.com and will be further expanded in a book that I PLAN will be completed this year (if I didn't plan it definitely won't happen!). In short, developing a sense of their life's narrative can empower people to see that things have happened for a reason, and that, whether this is conscious or not, often a result of some planning (especially the good bits).

Narrative works in many ways: linear, thematically, in uncovering patterns - we can use story to help us plan more appropriately, by highlighting ways we have sabotaged our own efforts in the past. Understanding our own career narrative helps us understand the past, identify with the present, and make plans for the future.

One of the mistakes Jim and the other proponents of 'no planning' make is spreading the idea that plans are concrete and that they are relatively static. Plans are a way of laying a foundation, of taking a look at life, of weighing up options. A good plan will create a more heightened awareness of opportunities (or Happenstance, as John Krumboltz calls it)and enables us to take advantage of them. For instance, around mid-2010 I noticed a sense of dissatisfaction with my own career, and started to explore this. I realised I needed a project of some kind, something with a bit of meat that I could get my teeth into.This was something new to me, an exciting new venture to contemplate. In August-September 2010 I started planning. I established the ingredients: something fresh, that would last at least 6 months, preferably a year, that I could put my mark on and see some real outcomes. It would be a career-related project, one that involved a team, not just myself. I waited patiently, talked to people, received encouragement from some and some weird looks from others.

Guess what! In November 2010, when the opportunity arose, I grabbed it with both hands. It was, literally, the job of a lifetime, everything I could have wanted, and more. Never before in my life have I been so specific about what I wanted - I was planning in full flight for something that had not even appeared by then, but planning enabled me to see it clearly in my heart and in my mind.

It is really hard to beat the experience I had in 2011, but I have every confidence I can do the same again. If I didn't believe this, I wouldn't be able to help others do the same.Assisting people individually to plan effectively, especially for long term, significant career change, is a hallmark of our profession, as is using the tools strategically and wisely. Along with this goes the ability to tap into their passions, to empower them with an attitude for success, and the confidence to take the appropriate steps, such as a course of study, new connections, taking new risks and trying things that take them out of their comfort zones. These are the core elements that work in combination to create career success.

More to come.

The Trouble With Careers

Careers are curious beasts, they can spin off in weird directions without much warning. For example, you might come into work one morning to find someone has cleared out your desk for you, which probably means you have been made redundant (unless you have been found out for doing something illegal, in which case I have no sympathy). Or you might find out, as a colleage of mine did a few years back, that your body has said 'enough is enough', and announced through a stroke or heart attack that it is no longer willing to do what you have been asking it to do.

Sometimes, the change is positive, but the ramifications can be just as derailing. Take me, for example. You may have noticed that it has been around six months since I posted my last blog. This is because last November I had a career change - a big, unplanned, unexpected and unprepared-for career change that sent me spinning off in a new direction.

This new opportunity is something I have been calling 'the job of my dreams' since I first saw it posted. I simply had to have it. I went all out for it, even though I was not technically even allowed to apply for it - fortunately I was the only applicant! Maybe I scared everyone else off, or maybe this was a true moment of happenstance in my life.

The job itself - well if I told you the actual responsibilities you might wonder what all the fuss is about. And to tell the truth I would not probably be wanting to do this job for the next ten years - but it is what it represents that is so mindblowing. It is a culmination of everything I have been working through in my life, drawing on all my skills and interests, and challenging enough to maintain my interest. It is a brand new role, fresh and alive for me to put my mark on it, to show how I can create something and make it work.

Suffice to say that I have loved every minute of the past six months, I have not had one single day of not wanting to go to work, which is in itself a first. The best thing about my job is my team of 8 staff; the next is the management team that I form a part of, which is highly supportive and innovtive as well as providing me the time I need get on with my own job. The third thing is that there is a large a variety of components, and fourthly I guess that I am never bored - a big plus for me, as boredom is my enemy.

I do truly feel blessed to have had the opportunity at least once in my life to absolutely love everything about my job, and to get paid for it s well! Needless to say, with a more-than-fulltime job my work with private clients, along with my writing plans, have been temporarily shelved. I say temporarily because I know that one day I will go back to these, they are part of me now, even when I am not doing them.

So you might be wondering why have I called this post 'The Trouble with Careers'? I suppose I have been thinking about why careers are problematic for so many of us. When we have a great job, we worry about losing it. When we are unhappy with our job, we might fail to see and make the most of opportunities. We might even worry that we don't deserve a great career, or what we think is going to be a great career turns out all wrong.

Sorry if this all sounds a bit weird and complex, but what I really mean is that true careers are transformational - they change us, help us grow and become better people, and we make them happen by our attitude. This has reinforced what I call my life's work, which is summarised in another blog storypractitioner.blogspot.com - check it out if you want to see what I mean.

If I can backtrack a little to September last year - despite all the successes I had experienced in my career and life to that point, I was not a happy chicken. I was bored, restless, wondering if there was anything left in the world to excite me. I knew I needed a new challenge, some kind of project, but I had no idea what this looked like. I talked to everyone who would listen about this and got a lot of advice, all of which I ignored, and some job offers, which I rejected - I knew that I had to wait for the right thing to come along. And it did.

Was getting this job an act of desperation, and I am making more of it than I really should? (after all at the moment I am only on a contract for another three months). Was it just a lucky break, or true happenstance? Does it have something to do with being incredibly focussed? Or can we base this success on some strategic planning, networking and clarifying my career direction?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I am loving my job, loving life, and loving me for probably the first time in my life. Am I fooling myself? Let me know, honestly, what you think?

If any of what I have said is meaningful to you, I want to know. For example if you have ever had (or currently have) your dream job - even if it was not a forever job, you know like that short term relationship that was a mindblowing experience while it lasted. Or is this something you likewise crave, so much that you are no longer counting down the days till your next holiday? And have you felt transformed in any way by your career? I'd love to hear from you.

Asking a Monkey for Career Help - Why Not?

A much-needed five week European vacation provided the distance from my work that I needed to regain perspective. It reminded me just how important taking time out is for body, mind and soul.

Unfortunately, taking a few weeks off from the daily grind is something most people believe is impossible these days. We have been conned into feeling that if we are away from our workplaces for more than a week, our jobs, livelihoods and lifestyles are jeopardised. In fact, the opposite is true - without taking time out to recharge we become stale, less competent and likely to make mistakes. Worse still, we become anxious and fretful, but don't see any of this until we gain some distance. Without gaining new perspective, ironically, many of us find our careers pulled from under us (if you don't know what I mean, ask Kevin Rudd - or you may already be saying, 'Kevin who?').

So if you are thinking you can't afford to take time off to get away from your normal surroundings and routine, I challenge you to rethink this now. How much money and time are you spending just propping up your current existence: eating out because you are too tired to shop or cook, gym fees that are hardly ever used, retail therapy or doctor's visits and pills?

Besides taking time off for some R and R, another way to revitalise is to review your career at regular intervals - once or twice a year, if you are not making significant changes. Obviously, if you are contemplating or going through a career change, then there are other things you will need to do as well.

One thing you can do is attend a careers expo. During the last weekend in Melbourne (that's Melbourne, Australia for international readers), I coordinated a stand at the Reinvent Your Career Expo, which is now in its third year. A group of career development practitioners volunteered their time to provide career check-ups and resume reviews, as well as conducting seminars and workshops on a range of issues. We know we were appreciated by those we helped, but we couldn't help everyone, and it was quite obvious to us that a lot of people are lost and confused about their career paths,and about how to get the right kind of assistance.

Our own little poll of people in a workshop we held in the final hour of the expo indicated that expecting to get actual career help from most standholders is, apparently, a waste of time. You might as well go to the zoo and ask the resident babboon. These people had come to the expo because they wanted or needed to do something different with their lives; they wanted something to excite them, to transform their careers - but had found little that was helpful.

They told us there were a lot of course providers wanting to engender interest in the programs they had on offer, others were selling resume or coaching services, some government departments were advertising themselves.

Tragically, no one (besides us) seemed interested in helping these people to actually reinvent their careers. All the other stallholders, apparantly, were self-interested and not concerned at all about the individuals who approached them. This is probably why our stand was always the busiest. Those of us who volunteered our time felt the real pain of those we talked with, and it was good to send quite a few people away with some concrete ideas and follow-up actions.

During and immediately following the expo, I have been wondering why people come to careers expos believing that they will get the answers to their career dilemmas. Most often, they don't and can't. Is it something to do with the way these events are advertised? Perhaps. Here are two reasons why I think careers expos fail to deliver on expectations.

1. Careers expos, like all expos, are essentially large marketing exercises. Instead of a 2 by 2 column in a newspaper, a billboard, or a radio or TV spot, expo organisers sell space for a limited period so that organisations and their potential clients can come together to achieve a common purpose. The reason this fails is because visitors expect something more, a community service perhaps - people to hold their hands and walk them into their new careers. Thus, they do no preparation, and wander from stand to stand hoping that someone will appear, god-like, with a job that is tailor made for them. Reinventing one's career is something that must start and end with the individual. Most of the work that needs to be done happens before and after the expo.

2. The second reason careers expos fail to meet expectations is that people who are wanting to change, improve, or just manage their careers, tend to seek help from all the wrong places. Unfortunately the career development industry - my industry, that requires post-graduate qualifications and experience - is still not understood at all well. This is compounded by the fact that many other industries use the word 'career' in their own titles and advertising, which misleads people into believing that they are career professionals.

For example, recruiters are not terribly interested in a candidate's career, other than whether it is a match for the positions they have to fill; nor do they usually know how to help them with a career change. (I say 'on the whole' because I have friends who are both recruiters and career counsellors/coaches, but these are exceptions to the rule). But people still complain about the recruiter who did not show much interest in them or empathy about their situation. Recruiters are not in the empathy business, they are in the business or getting candidates to pass on to their employer clients.

A course provider is not interested in a person's career development either, they really only want to fill their courses, so a person visiting their stand is a 'potential student',and if that person is uncertain or presents a difficult career dilemma, they will soon be relegated to the 'too hard' basket. This makes good sense; getting people into classes ensures their institution remains viable and they get to keep their jobs.

Do go to careers expos, they can be really good if you go prepared and if you know how to use them well. Go with the idea of 1) getting ideas that you can follow up on, 2) finding specific information on a career or job that you find interesting or 3) asking some direct questions that are targetted to the professionals you will be talking to. Don't go to an expo thinking you will be handed a job - you will most probably be disappointed. When it comes to managing your career or landing that job, hard work on your part is required.

There are no shortcuts, but getting the right kind of help can really provide a boost. Qualified and experienced career development practitioners are available - they may be a bit hard to find, but if you contact us at Career Dimensions we will do our best to make that part a whole lot easier.