The Biggest Blindspot In Your Career Path
Before You Decide What You Want to Do, Decide Who You Want to Be
We spend a significant portion of our lives working—often eight or even ten or more hours a day. This isn’t a passive process; we are becoming someone through our work. Each job, project, and interaction shapes us. When you’re thinking about the future of your career, the real question isn’t just “What do you want to do for a living?” but “Who do you want to become in the process?”
Our daily work is like practicing a skill. Just as musicians or athletes become great through consistent practice, our work habits shape who we become. Think about it for a moment: What are you practicing each day at work?
Do you feel like you’re growing? If so, perhaps you are cultivating an inquisitive mindset, greater capacity for patience, exercising your creativity, or demonstrating impactful leadership skills.
Do you feel agitated? Is your mental and physical health suffering? Are you becoming short-fused, scattered, bored, disengaged, or reactive? These are symptoms of being unintentional. When we’re unintentional, our daily lives become eclipsed by the priorities and energy of others, and the consequences can be both bewildering and unsustainable.
Regardless of your answer, the good news is that once you bring awareness to this, you can start making conscious choices about who you want to become and what you want to do. The symptoms of unintentionality can feel a lot like burnout or boredom, but they don’t always mean that you have to get a new job, move to a new town, or completely upend your career.
Working your creativity muscle, growing your qualities of leadership, or practicing your public speaking skills are all examples of specific and intentional “goals of becoming” that may not be evident in your job description, but those opportunities are available to you everyday in your role.
Consider these questions:
What values are most important to me, and do they align with my current work?
How do my daily tasks contribute to the person I want to become?
In what ways does my work allow me to serve a purpose greater than myself?
Are there aspects of my job that feel misaligned with my true self?
How can I make small changes today to better align my work with my core values and purpose?
Perhaps the answers to these questions are very clear for you, and what’s even more clear is that you’re misaligned in your current role and need to make a change. Alternatively, you may be staring at these questions and be completely in the fog and need to do some further exploring. Either way, take heart that your career is a journey of becoming—you get to decide who you want to be, and let that guide your path.
Ready to take a supported approach to exploring who you’re becoming through your work? Grab 30 minutes with me for a free consultation and let’s uncover how you can create a life where your work is a reflection of your highest values and deepest purpose.
