Standing out as an individual in your own right
The mix of our life experiences, personal talents, ambitions, hopes and aspirations make us unique. The challenge is to develop this uniqueness to fulfil our potential and make our own mark on the world. Forging a distinctive identity based on our individuality and creativity is also about our urge to “heroism”, that desire to prove that we are in some sense special and with the capacity to accomplish great things in life and be worthy of the respect and admiration of others.
This important life task requires us to avoid peer pressure and refuse to live our lives against others’ expectations. The challenge is to achieve things on our own terms in our own way. This task of life asks us to keep pushing forward when others criticise and undermine our achievements. It also demands the courage to take risks to realise something of our potential, accepting that failure may be a consequence It is true that ambition without talent and hard work (or a slice of luck) may result in unfulfilled dreams and life disillusionment.
It is also true that the drive towards personal advancement can become more preoccupied with standing and status rather than the substance of genuine achievement. This challenge then possesses risks with the potential for unhappiness in life. But it also provides the opportunity to become and achieve something extraordinary. In a world of convention and conformity, overcoming this challenge allows you to be true to yourself and your individuality.
Meeting and overcoming this life challenge:
Managing Your Career Proactively |
Going It Alone |
Expressing your creativity |
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Knowing your worth in the market place |
Managing Your Career Proactively
For most of us, work is a major component in our lives and an important
theme within our overall life happiness. The choice: “grit
our teeth” and get on with it, grudgingly, seeing work as something
we have to do to make a living. Or to see work as an arena in life
which allows us to express something of our individuality. At its
worst, work is “switched-off-and-zoned-out”, a mix of
boredom, stress and futility. At best, work provides the opportunity
to acquire new talents and skills, to develop our creativity and
make our own distinctive mark.
“A good manager is a man who isn't worried about his own career but rather the careers of those who work for him. My advice: Don't worry about yourself. Take care of those who work for you and you'll float to greatness on their achievements.”
H.S.M. Burns
www.workthing.com: articles and links around proactive career management
www.icg-uk.org: finding a careers adviser within your locality
Finding a Job you Love
Easier said than done. But don’t compromise to stay in a job
you don’t enjoy or find fulfilling, even if it does pay well.
Be imaginative in your review of your career options.
“The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.”
Arnold Toynbee
www.johnleescareers.com: from the author of “How To Get A job You’ll Love”, recommended sites
jobsadvice.guardian.co.uk: CV surgery, job match service and advice
Know Your Worth in the Market Place
Don’t spend your life scanning the job ads to see if the grass
is greener on the other side. Nonetheless, don’t allow yourself
to be exploited by an organisation that is happy to pay you much less
than your worth in the market place.
www.totaljobs.com: a useful salary checker to look at what jobs are paid in different sectors
The Fundamentals of Job Search
Don’t waste time applying for non jobs and wasting time in the
hoops and loops of prolonged selection processes. Zero in the real
jobs that are right for you and be smart in the tactics you use to
navigate through the recruitment system.
“The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.”
Stanley J. Randall
www.jobhuntersbible.com: brief articles by Richard N. Bolles, “What Colour is Your Parachute” for job hunters and career changers
www.i-resign.com: great articles for job seek and search
www.jobseekersadvice.com: free career advice website for jobseekers
Getting Promoted
Promotion is not an end in itself, even if the perks – better
office, car, etc – are preferable to being stuck or sidelined.
Promotion provides you with the opportunity to exert greater influence
to do things your way, to make a bigger impact and to take greater
control over your life. And if your promotion is making life more miserable,
you’ve got things wrong.
“I've been promoted to middle management. I never thought I'd sink so low.”
Tim Gould
www.fastcompany.com: how to climb the ladder when the rungs are missing
www.ivillage.co.uk: a web site for women with lots of career related articles
A Portfolio Career
To develop a portfolio career we should like flexibly about our life
and work. There is no steady job for life. Instead, we have a range
of skills, “some for sale and some to be given as gifts”.
In a portfolio career, rather than working for one organisation full
time, we take on various projects working for different clients.
change.monster.com: overview of a portfolio life
Dealing with Career Setbacks
Shit happens. There will come a time when you will get it badly wrong, screw
up a key sales presentation, alienate your boss, cock up a mission critical
project or make a fool of yourself at some important social event. And you
need to find ways of recovering or moving on.
“The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that you are working for somebody else. Job security is gone. The driving force of a career must come from the individual. Remember: Jobs are owned by the company, you own your career!”
Earl Nightingale
“If the career you have chosen has some unexpected inconvenience, console yourself by reflecting that no career is without them.”
Johnson
www.eoslifework.co.uk: managing personal and organisational change
www.i-resign.com: the complete guide to resigning - everything you ever needed to know about quitting your job, from writing a magnanimous letter to exiting with style.
Going It Alone
If the work place is suffocating you in “corporate conformity” and
not giving you the opportunity to be who you want to be, know you can
be and realise your talents and creativity, what are the alternatives?
Which option is best for you and your life circumstances?
“Independence .... is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes.”
Mark Twain
Returning to Education
Do you feel you need to regroup and move your career forward in a very
different direction? If you feel your current job isn’t working
for you and you want to pursue new options, then a return to education – part
or full-time – may be a smart move.
www.schoolsnet.com: search the UK's largest and most accurate database of educational opportunities.
www.learndirect.co.uk: on line courses, articles and resources
Working from Home
If your life circumstances are such that full or even part time work
is impossible (or you are simply tired of the daily commute), then
home working may be an option for you.
“If a company won't trust me to use the Internet effectively, I don't care to work for them.”
Mike Gunderloy
www.homeworking.com: for anyone wanting to work at home and anyone already working at home. You will find lots to get you started, help you find work at home and avoid the typical scams
New Business Set Up
You have a fantastic concept, a brilliant idea for a new product or
service and you think you can make it succeed. Or you are simply
tired of working for someone who is making lots of money through
your hard work and talents. Then setting up your own business may
be a good move. Think it through in a cool headed way, seeing the
risks and hazards as well as the opportunities and gains.
www.businesslink.gov.uk: all the fundamentals for getting started
www.bytestart.co.uk: the small business portal with masses of links and articles
www.startups.co.uk: very comprehensive site with articles and link
Down Shifting to the Country
Is the “good life” achieved through a move to the countryside,
buying some land, restoring an old farmhouse and living the live of
self sufficiency? It might, but do your research first.
“You needed a cool name to put on a T-shirt, and you needed a T-shirt to give to people. It was part of getting people excited enough to work 70 hours a week.”
Erich Ringe of Apple
www.downshiftingweek.com: organisations, local, national and international, which support and encourage different aspects of simpler living
www.smallholder.co.uk: on line smallholder magazine - written by smallholders, for smallholders
Alternative Life Styles
If mainstream working life within the conventions of consumer capitalism
is proving too stifling, then you might want to explore more radical
life style alternatives.
“It is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.”
Winston Churchill
www.zenzibar.com: a portal and directory of alternatives to Western mainstream culture. If nothing else, this site will remind you of the diversity of humankind.
www.skyhen.org: alternative news and media sources for politics and current events in the news today.
www.big-boards.com: website directory with a list of the most active message boards on the web
Expressing your Creativity
What other outlets are there in life for you to explore those facets
of your personality that will encourage your creative spirit?
“Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
“To live a creative life we must lose our fear of being wrong.”
Joseph Chillons Pearce
www.jpb.com: articles and techniques for innovation and creativity
garbl.home.comcast.net: advice for increasing creativity and innovation in your writing, in your personal life, on the job, in school, in the arts and elsewhere.
The Potential of Evening Classes
Why not pursue any of your emerging interests through evening classes.
Nurture that fleeting thought: “I’m interested in…” or “Wouldn’t
it be good if I could…” through the experience, knowledge
and ideas accessible through evening classes.
“Education is not merely a means for earning a living or an instrument for the acquisition of wealth. It is an initiation into life of spirit, a training of the human soul in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue.”
Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
www10.learndirect-advice-search.co.uk: search through 942,courses throughout the UK in subjects ranging from mountaineering to cooking.
Writing, the Arts and Music
Have you tried to develop your creativity through the arts (writing,
the performing arts, music, painting, etc)?
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
Scott Adams
“For the artist, the real maker…it’s what makes life worth having.”
Robertson Davies
www.ehow.com: a fantastic array of “how to’s” covering hundreds of arts topics