How to define what your TRUE career is to reach your potential
How do you know what your career TRULY is?
We go to school, get a degree, start a job, get a promotion…these are the typical building blocks we think of when talking about how to build our careers. But, this doesn’t hold up anymore on how you truly create your career.
We need to think about our careers differently, and define what our TRUE career is versus the career you think is you have on paper.
Although the starting point of a career tends to be traced back to our education or an apprenticeship or a first job, it doesn’t mean any of those things pertain to how our careers evolve over time, and what they become later on in life.
The truth is, our careers are not linear. Our careers are vast and complex. And, our careers are not about the sequence of everything we do in our work lives.
We may work in one industry for a decade and gain deep knowledge, and we may change jobs ever 2 to 3 years and seem like someone who is unfocused and noncommital. Yet, both types of professionals have “careers”. Their careers just look different (and it’s likely harder for the latter person to explain what their career is).
Today, most people follow winding career paths due to multiple passions, life pivots, and companies going through layoffs and restructures. It’s hard for most people to say their career is about ONE thing because they encompass so many different parts. And that’s okay.
Defining YOur True Career
Regardless of whether you have a:
hybrid career (where your career is a blended combination of two or more subject areas), a
portfolio career (where you have an assortment of separate income streams matched to your interests or talents),
or a traditional career (which is aligned to your past job titles and roles, usually with increasing responsibility), none of these mean you know what your true career is.
You still need to know what your true career is.
I define your true career as the constellation of events and experiences across your lifetime that you consider to be your work.
That means not every project, job or client you take is part of your career.
Only the pieces and experiences you feel are connected to your values, legacy and purpose are the ones that are a part of your career. You may not always be working in or on your true career (sometimes we have to take breaks or make tough decisions between earning money or taking a job that aligns with our true career).
Remember, you're the decider of your career- not your boss, career coach, friends, family, or college degree (this points to career belonging, see more below).
An Exercise to define your true career
It's easier to understand what our careers are when we look back on what we've been doing. Every five years or so, it's healthy to take stock on what you've been up to in your work.
Here’s an exercise to do. Reflect on the following questions
In the past five years or decade:
What specific types of content. processes, industries and clients have you been focused on and why?
How has your job or work evolved in that time?
Which elements of your work have you enjoyed the most?
Which parts of your work have you celebrated or take pride in the most?
Now what do you see across your answers? Take a close look at your reflections.
Your Reflections Reveal Your True career
Your answers to these questions are clues to what your career is truly about. For instance, if you see that you’re always helping people, or always doing something creative, or always troubleshooting and fixing things, then those are insights into who you are and what your career is really about.
Personally, I have three degrees, one in art, one in teaching, and one in curriculum. I spent years as an art educator, more years a leader of innovation, and then wrote a book and became a professional identity researcher. The common theme here is hard to see. For a long time, I didn’t think I even had a career. What I realized is my career is about being a creative disruptor.
No matter who I work for or what kind of work I do, I’m always creatively disrupting the processes, activities, products and systems. It’s just what I do, and it speaks to the bigger picture of what my career is truly about. Plus, this is what makes me feel happy and thrive in the workforce. I love creating a career where I can creatively disrupt. That’s my truth.
By reflecting back on your work, you can perceive new themes and patterns emerging that shape the essence of what your career is. You may have started with an idea of what you were trying to accomplish in your career, and then realized you ended up in an entirely new space. (I have seen this again and again in my own life!) It’s a beautiful realization to have that your career is bigger than the jobs you hold.
How to reach your career potential
Reaching your potential is about having a career that aligns to your values and makes you feel you’re making an impact in the world.
If you don't like your answers to the questions above, or you're surprised in a negative way by what you wrote, then it's time to recalibrate and reclaim what you want your career to be about. After all, your career belongs to you! You can choose the experiences you want to have, and you can participate in work events that provide meaning to you and align with your interests and goals.
The goal in reaching your career potential is not to find a job that perfectly matches your true career. The goal is to find a variety of work experiences that are related to your true career. Be creative in how you seek these out. They may be little projects within the company you work for, new projects you invent for yourself, volunteer gigs, or a role you end up doing after the role you’re currently in. You can engage in all kinds of true career experiences as often as you like over your lifetime.
Remember, within one role or one employer, there can be micro-moments that are aligned to your career potential. You don’t have to find one job that fits who you are all the time. That’s why you need to allow for variety in your work- some will be true career work and other work will not be. A project here, a side hustle there, stay with one job for 10 years and then change again are all ways you can get tastes of being in your career potential. Be open-minded that reaching your career potential is about collecting experiences as you go, as opposed to being in your true career 100% of the time.