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Too many people have mistaken ideas when it comes to their approach to their careers. We often believe that working incredibly hard in jobs that we don’t truly enjoy is ‘responsible’ and what adults should do. We often feel that we don’t really have any choice when it comes to what we do for a living. We often feel scared to try anything else.And this is why so many of us are unhappy in our careers: we just ‘let them happen’ and accept the career path that we fall into. We leave school or college, take the first job opportunity that comes our way, and then work hard to progress up the ladder. We never take a moment to actually ask: is this what I want? Do I have a choice?
Here are some ways to apply the principles that we’ve discussed to making progress in your career…
Knowing What You Want
The first and most important thing to focus on here is step 3 – coming up with your plan. It’s time to acknowledge that you don’t have to continue working a job you don’t like and there’s no reason that you even need to focus on your career at all. The first myth we need to dispel then is the notion that you need to get your sense of satisfaction and progress from your career at all. That is to say that you should be able to get the same satisfaction from a hobby.
We often feel that our sense of self-worth and achievement is tied up in our careers and that we need to work harder and harder in order to feel like we’re progressing in life. But while you might be CEO of a logistics company, you are still ultimately in charge of making sure people get staplers – when your passion might be painting works of art.This is why you can often do better to simply switch your focus to your ‘extra-curricula activities’. My sister did this as an artist when she realized that the reality of her intended field (creating props for movies) was not quite as idealistic as she had hoped.
So instead, she took on a job that would pay the bills by working as a saleswoman and then used her spare time to work on her creations in her own time. She has gone on to receive quite a following on social media and has sold several of her works to private buyers. So although her career isn’t something she gets particularly excited about, she still gets that sense of progress and excitement and doesn’t need to keep taking on more responsibilities to feel happy and fulfilled.And that also brings us to the other point: your wealth isn’t entirely determined by your career either.
You can just as easily augment your income through other means. This is once again why it is important to consider the precise nature of your goals – if your goal is to be richer, then you can do it by shrinking expenses, by finding other sources of income etc. If your goal is to get more status then you may be happy to progress in your current career. If it is to be fulfilled in your artist endeavors, or to be acknowledged for your ideas, then you may prefer to focus on working on projects outside the office.
This is essentially what we refer to as ‘lifestyle design’. Lifestyle design means that you’re focussing on what you can do to create your perfect lifestyle and you’re looking for the path of least resistance to get there.
Heck, it might mean creating income from elsewhere so that you can afford to work 4 days a week. Why not!
Creating a Fool-Proof Strategy
We’ve address the power that fear can have over us and the way it can prevent us from going after our goals. This is especially true when it comes to achieving things in our careers. And for that reason, it makes sense for us to take a look at some of the things we can do to make our career goals less risky.
For example, a lot of people will make the statement that they want to look for another job but that they can’t because they have too many responsibilities. They might even make the unfounded claim that they wouldn’t be able to find another that would pay the same salary… without looking!
The same goes for starting a part-time business. You don’t have to immediately transition from one job to another when you can simply use your spare time in the evenings or in the weekends to work on your new business idea. Only once you are certain it works should you then consider leaving your current job in order to take on the new one and this will present you with another risk-free way to transition to a job or career you love.
You can even try reducing your work hours and then use that extra free time in order to work on your business. Take a part-time job and during your longer free hours, work on your business project. The same goes for investment. If you need investment to create a business idea then there are lots of risk-free ways to get it. Using Kickstarter these days is a great option for example and involves zero risks as well as a great way to test the reception for your idea. Likewise, you could ask your parents for investment, you could get a business partner friend, or you could take out a credit card loan.
As long as you don’t quit your current job, you can just make sure that the loan repayment terms are something you could manage to pay off if you had to and that way, you won’t be putting yourself at any risk.If you really want to make this happen, then you can always find a way.And if you have assessed your vision and you just want to be a rock musician, then don’t be distracted by trying to get rich. Focus to start with on doing the thing you love and finding more time for it. Let success come as a by-product.
As soon as you start working on your project, you’ll find that it is rewarding and you now have a drive and passion that wakes you up in the morning and makes you more animated, more passionate and more exciting to be around for others even. It doesn’t even matter if you are a success. And that’s why you should also view ‘failure’ simply as a chance to reassess your strategy and try something else. When you take this approach, there is really no way you can fail.
The Path of Least Resistance
Remember, genuinely going after something you want means taking the most direct and practical route to getting there: the path of least resistance. In this case, that means creating a business idea that you can realistically accomplish, or designing one around your current contacts and ideas.
One common mistake that a lot of people make is coming up with ideas they think will change the world. If that is your vision, then it doesn’t also need to be a money-making venture to begin with. But if your vision (step 1) was to become wealthy, maybe to gain financial independence, then the most effective way to accomplish that goal is to focus on tried and tested methods for making money.
That is to say that you don’t need to break the mold and come up with whole new business models.
You don’t need to become the next Mark Zuckerberg. Because there are billions of these huge projects that fail every year.
Meanwhile, just count the number of successful shops, clothes lines, resellers, building companies, hair dressers. There’s nothing wrong with taking an idea that you’ve seen work and then just following it through to the letter. You now have a blueprint for success and you aren’t having to reinvent the wheel.
Likewise, think about your resources and contacts. If you happen to know the editor of a gardening magazine, then that is an incredibly powerful contact to have and you should make the most of that – start a gardening service and use them to advertise!
You should also play to your strengths and if you know a lot about gardening, then once again, this is a good choice for your career. Very often, branching out (no pun intended) to start your own business will make most sense if you stick in your current industry: this way you’ll have the expertise, experience and contacts to give yourself a great head-start.
Remember step 2: assessing your current situation and your resources. Make a list of everything you have available to you, all your skills, all your limitations and then think about what business and lifestyle changes will help you to get
The Fail Fast Model
Remember when we discussed how fear could hold some people back and one way this presented itself was when someone would work on perfecting their product without actually releasing anything? Not only is this a blatant delay tactic but it also means that if you eventually do release your product, you risk suffering a devastating defeat if it doesn’t go to plan. This happened to a friend of mine who had an idea for a business and then spent the next 3 years perfecting it.
He trademarked the business name, took on a legal advisor, even paid for an expensive launch party! All for what essentially amounted to a website. He tested the site in every browser and every display size meticulously, he conducted copious amounts of market research and he paid for tons of server space and bandwidth ready to cope with the inevitable huge amounts of traffic. But his upfront and ongoing costs were so high that he went bankrupt almost immediately.
The opposite approach is the ‘fail fast model’. If you have an idea for a business, then you should create an MVP or ‘minimal viable product’. This is the most basic, affordable and easy version of your product or service that you can release to the market immediately. That way, you can now test market response to it without having invested lots of your time and money into it. You throw lots of ideas at the wall, quickly putting together something that works. If the idea is successful, you can then invest time and money into it. If it isn’t, you iterate, learn from your mistakes and move on!