Peering into the Looking Glass

I've been "in transition" several times in my career, so I understand just how lonely, frustrating and... well, demeaning that experience can be. And yes, today's difficult economy is certainly a cause for the difficulties many people are now confronting. That said, however, I think it's also true that a significant number of people who are unemployed today are suffering from career illnesses of which they are unaware or, worse, are ignoring.

Here's the sobering truth of the modern American workplace: a career can be sick-even fatally ill-and a person will never know it until they suffer career cardiac arrest or what most of us call unemployment. If there's anything the Great Recession has made clear it's that what we know about our health is also true about our careers:

• It's up to each individual to care for the fitness of their career-not their academic department, their mentor, their boss, their employer or their parents.
• We have to work on reinforcing the fitness of our career every single day-not once a year during our annual performance appraisal and salary review.

No less important, pursuing "career fitness"-or might formally be described as career self-management-is not the same as developing one's expertise in a field of study or occupation. That expertise is obviously a necessary component of career health, but it is not sufficient to ensure sustained employment and a satisfying work experience. What must also be acquired is a commensurate level of expertise in the body of knowledge and skills required to achieve and sustain the strength, reach and endurance of one's career.

My book Work Strong introduces a system-the Career Fitness Regimen-for acquiring that expertise. As with a physical fitness program, it is designed to help you understand the principles of safe and effective career building and the practices that will enable you to implement those principles effectively, day-in day-out.

It all begins, of course, with an accurate assessment of just how healthy your career actually is right now. You can perform such an assessment by looking candidly at how prepared you are to deal with the new constant in the American workplace: change. It's the one thing we humans most hate to do, and it's the one factor we must learn to accommodate in order to lead healthy careers going forward. In the 21st Century world of work, there will be continuous changes in assignments, in schedules, in jobs, in employers and yes, occasionally even in occupations.

So, ask yourself this: is your career healthy enough that you are the master of those changes rather than their victim? (If you're having a difficult time making that judgment, use the Career Fitness Checkup on page 51 of my book.)

Thanks for reading,
Peter