Writing The Chapters In Your Career Evolution

I was discussing the topics of careers the other day with my wife. We had a long discussion about what she wanted to do and how it would play into her career. As I thought deeper about this topic, I feel like I began to realize something. For me, my career has evolved and changed. I can't take one idea and apply it to my life to say that I want that specific things or position to be my indefinite career.

To me, a career evolves and constantly changes. Your career is not a specific position -- that's a job. Your career is your life professional story. What do you want your story to look like?

When I first was a kid, I had a lot of different things I thought I wanted to do. We go through it all I feel like. Sometimes, we take things in our "career" that might not even be a step in the right direction. We take these positions sometimes out of desperation, yet they still fall into place as being a career path that we chose.

The farther along in your story, the harder it is to re-write and chose your own adventure for where the story will end up. Part of it, is that the story won't make sense. Another part is that it's so far along, that you don't want to spend the energy to read a new story.

In any case, your career story is a long novel and each step along the way is just that next chapter (pun intended) in your story.

So, what do you want your novel to look like when it gets to the end? Do you want exciting highs and lows? Or do you want your novel to be the same chapter, that's just really really long but has no evolution?

For me, my interests change and I am in a way different field now than I thought I wanted to be in when I was in college. Fortunately, I'm pretty clever and have found ways to tie my jobs all in to each other and make them applicable to my life experience so I wouldn't have to completely jump ship and start a whole new career change.

As we progress and self-develop, our story evolves and continues to grow as well. Personally, I will much prefer to find a path and write chapters that make my career story outstanding and to ultimately deliver the best story I can tell.

I hope you all get to write the best story you can as well and remember, don't be afraid to start that new chapter!