How to intend your career: One extremely, inordinately simple formula

I want to focus a little more on “intending” your career. This is not a recent revelation, the idea of intending a career, but something I have known about for quite awhile. It is just that I forget that it is always possible; especially when there appears to be so many different career choices when a person is intrigued by many things. So, if you’re flailing about, wondering what you really should be doing with your work life, consider, perhaps, that the plan has already been decided.

I am aware that sounds a little (OK, a lot) fatalistic but I read somewhere, a long time ago, that the things we did as children, things that interested us, are an indication of our purpose for being. This is supposedly because, as children, we were still close to our originating source so that it was easy to remember our reason for being born in the first place.

As a kid, I loved to find better solutions to problems and fascinated why other people had difficulty or no interest in devising strategies for solving problems. The most dramatic example of this was when I was in the first grade. It was close to Christmas and the project was to make a glitter angel with glue, paper, and glitter. This was not a particularly challenging project. As my classmates lovingly sprinkled glitter over each millimeter of glue to produce an angel, I found their method to be too elementary (I am aware of the irony) and time-consuming. Yes, even at the age of seven I was looking for ways to consolidate activities to make people, myself in particular, more productive. So, after drawing my glue outline, I dumped the entire bottle of glitter onto the paper, my rationale being to gently fold the paper in two, and allowing the excess glitter to fall back into the bottle. Voilà, glitter angel. Let’s move onto the next project.

Unfortunately, this is where I learned my first lesson that some people are more interested in preserving their comfort zone or schedule than they are in innovative production techniques. My teacher, Mrs. Sheets, stopped me the moment I had dumped the entire contents of the glitter bottle onto the paper. She appeared mortified and proceeded to chastise me in front of the entire class for being wasteful and a “glutton”. A 7 year-old glitter glutton. I do not jest. She then had me dump the glitter back into the bottle so that I could start over even though after returning the glitter to the bottle I had my angel! Go figure. It took me many (adult) years to realize my teacher was annoyed because my quicker method to completing the project meant she would then have to alter her plans to accommodate my now free time and she was obviously not prepared for that.

As they say, I regress. At an early age, my aptitude, competencies, talent, and interests were clear. The problem was that this all seemed too broad. It would have been easier had I a love affair with insects, toy trucks, or the violin. Passion in those areas would substantially narrow the career choices. When your abilities are broad-based, however, suddenly there are too many paths from which to choose. But, if you look closely, what you should be doing is there, buried beneath what others think you should be doing (unless, of course, everyone keeps pointing out a specific talent you should be honing) or what you have resigned yourself to doing because it was available at the time you were looking. Neither is a good choice.

It’s not too late. It’s never too late. You can shift course, you can refine, you can choose. And you will be totally, completely, awestruck by the results. Your first step to getting to this is becoming single-minded in what you wish to achieve. Fear and doubt fall away when you see your goal.

I wish it were more complicated than this because then we would have an excuse for not having done it sooner.

Is it a skill or a competency?

Do you know the difference? When we think of people closing a sale, digging a great ditch, or generating concise financial reports, we may believe these activities demonstrate an individual’s competency when, in actuality, these activities demonstrate a skill. Skills are typically the things we tend to focus on when writing resumes or during interviews. We do this with the belief that hiring managers are more interested in what we can do (the skills we offer) within a narrow scope (a specific job) as opposed to what we are capable of doing (our competencies) across the organization. However, if you’re wondering which is more important, the answer is: Both.

If you are good at sales, is this because you demonstrate initiative and have strong leadership skills? Are you able to dig great ditches because you have a penchant for getting things done the right way? When preparing financial reports, are they concise because you are unwavering in your diligence? All of these represent competencies that can be transferred to other areas within an organization.

Especially now, when organizations are cutting staff or not hiring, in order to keep pace, companies may be more apt to look inward at existing employees who possess competencies needed to achieve goals. And, for those organizations looking to bring on new employees from the outside, candidates who are able to showcase skills and competencies can gain a leg up on their competition.