Your career began with your DNA and is continually created as a result of your experiences in work, social, hobby, and recreational situations. Having a career that you create means to travel your own path, to want to go somewhere, and to engage in experiences that lead to a place that you value. You are expressing who you really are and feel that you are making a contribution to something outside of yourself. You are strong in the most important ability areas for an occupation and enjoy carrying out the activities that lead to effectiveness. You are supported by your environment, feel that you are competitive, and know that by taking one step at a time you will succeed.
A feeling that you have a career and are contributing to something important to you does not come early or easily. Some people feel called to something early in their life. But the most important aspect of a first career job for most people is that it takes advantage of existing skills and provides an opportunity to develop new ones. It is only after being on that job or a similar job for a few years that the feeling of wanting to accomplish something that you value might arise. You are trying to concentrate on doing the work and disrupting thoughts about doing something different interfere. Early in the job you were easily motivated by earning a living, being around compatible people, or appreciating the identity of working for a respected company. But once you attained those, their power as motivators diminished and it is time to move on to explore a new career challenge.
The first thing you can do to achieve a creative career is to express in your outside work who you really are on the inside. It is to stop trying to only please others and to be yourself. Second, a creative career involves contributing to something outside of yourself that you value. It is extending beyond satisfying your needs to satisfying a deeply held value.
Who are you in your career now? Your job title? Your credentials? The results you are creating? You are how you respond to challenges that you see. You are what you do. In your career right now, you are the questions you ask, how you listen, the options for acting you consider, and the decisions you make about what to do in specific situations. You are what you naturally and spontaneously do. This is how you are expressing yourself now. It is the start of a creative career and is what you should concentrate on as the first step. The second step is engage in a variety of experiences until you discover how you can contribute to what you value most.
Bill Gregory, Ed.D., is a Seattle-based career counselor, coach, and author who will help you to develop a stronger path for your career.
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