Who is Guiding Your Career?

The second chapter of Work Strong brings up how to analyze your career's health. There is an assessment in the book, the Career Fitness Evaluation (p. 55-57), that I hope many of you took this opportunity to fill out. Use this assessment piece to reflect upon your career and the direction it is headed. Are you working smartly and in your own best interests? Are you feeling happy, valued, and connected to your working community? You need to figure out who is guiding your career. Are forces outside yourself directly influencing your career or are you guiding your career?

The value of self-reflection is in taking the time out of your day to invest in yourself. The information you get from having these honest conversations with yourself are most valuable when trying to improve the overall health of your career. The best way to make yourself feel happy in your career is by being honest with yourself about what you are putting into it and what you want to get out. Only once you have established clear, honest, career goals can you know what needs to be done to improve your career health.

Ask the tough questions that get to the root of analyzing a career's health. Where do you need to make improvements in your day-to-day or month-to-month activities? Do you need to make more connections in your chosen field? Do you need to find a job that meets some different needs you now have that you did not have before? Are you well paid but not feeding your creative side? Are you allowed freedom to take risks but are not getting the recognition from your boss or peers that you desire? Any of these could be the source of your unhappiness, but you are able to change them.

Particularly in higher education, one needs to periodically take stock of their situation as institutions change and you enter different stages of your academic career. Ask yourself this: are you reacting to changes in your career, or is your career reacting to changes you make in yourself? Share any thoughts that you had about the Career Fitness Evaluation and how it has helped you take stock of your career's health below.