Career Planning

If you notice any of the famous and successful people, you will notice a common theme running through the careers of these people - they have been passionate about their beliefs and wanted to make a difference. And maybe thats the reason why they seem to radiate such self-confidence and energy. You can almost feel their passion and commitment, and the power that it seems to give them to achieve extraordinary things.

I was recently reading a book called 'Careers Unplugged' and was pleased to read that the author had shared similar views and infact described this further by encouraging everyone to find their 'sweet spots'. I am keen to share this further through my blog today.

The reason, like I said, is simple. Competence and passion constitute an unbeatable combination for a successful career. If you can find something that you're both good at and feel strongly about, you are well placed to achieve a truly satisfying career. So when you think about your career choices at any stage of your career, ask yourself two questions:

1)What am I good at (or what are my natural strengths)?
2)What am I passionate about?

If you're lucky, the answers to these questions will be the same - you're in your own personal career 'sweet spot'. But if they're not, you'll need to find a way of reconciling them if you have to unleash your full career and personal potential. Just as your own intuition and experience tell us that there should be a link between passion and success, so research seems to confirm this. All famous and successful people found their 'sweet spots' i.e. they identified what were their natural strengths and leveraged these expertly to combine them with their passion.

What happens if you're not able to reconcile competence and passion? You are likely to find yourself pondering unmet needs in your current role so that while you 'do' your job, you are not able to engage yourself fully. As a consequence, you may well relegate yourself to a mediocre career. In the worst case, it could result in sustained feelings of personal stress. However, it is never too late. If you find yourself in mid-career feeling unfulfilled because you are not operating in your career 'sweet spot', remember that there are examples of late starters.

To find your own career 'sweet spot', you have to commit the time to working at it. You may realise, for example, that although you are good at analysing problems, you feel happiest or most passionate when you have contact with clients and are of service to customers. Or you may be a 'natural' with technology but prefer creating marketing campaigns. Or you may find yourself in an operational role when in fact you long to bury yourself in groundbreaking research.