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"It's not necessarily about what career you pick. It's about how you do what you do."
Cory Doctrow, Science Fiction Writer

Creating a Successful Life/Career for Self and Others

Career: an occupation or profession followed as a lifes work; a course or passage.

Life: a way of living; the physical and mental experiences of an individual; a specific phase or period.

In the past, career professionals have suggested that we have a work or a career life and a home life and that we should consider them to be separate units.

I agree, however, with the assertion of Dr. Alan Weiss that we dont have a separate work life and a separate home life; we simply have a life! In todays society, drawing a line between work and home is no longer valid. I suggest that we no longer try to separate them.

The concept of working or earning a living to help fund what you really want to do is flawed. At some level, most if not all of what a person does in life should be linked to his or her natural gifts, talents, interests, passion, and purpose. Rather than thinking about life in the context of a career path, we need to shift our thinking to our purpose in the context of our current stage in life and our desired lifestyle.

A New Mandate for Career Development Professionals

What is the mandate of career development professionals? In the past, job titles and job descriptions drove the conversations between career development professionals and their clients. At CRG, we suggest that individuals are far more unique than what SI Codes offer and that our lives are far more organic than the SI process.

Another strategy in the profession is the practice of using a battery of psychometric tests to determine the characteristics of the client, including who and what he is and what his interests are. This practice has limited use in the context of career development and career choice.

Norms that are part of the psychometric process typically apply only to the specific group where the standardization was created. This means new norms should be quantified in EVERY unique user group. That process quickly becomes impractical for most organizations and typically results in a co-dependent relationship because it ALWAYS requires qualified and certified practitioners to interpret the results.

Career development professionals should not be telling the client what he/she should be doing but rather facilitating a process to assist the client in self-discovery.

The new mandate for career development professionals is to provide processes, systems, and experiences so their clients are equipped to make confident, independent, and intentional life decisions. Our responsibility is to help individuals discover their purpose. Discover means uncover, not create.

Strategies to Successful Career/Life Development

1. Think of creating and fulfilling an overall lifestyle, not a separate home life and work life.
2. The intent of the career professional is to equip the client to be independent in the future. Whenever possible, avoid any co-dependent process that requires professionals to interpret the results.
3. Establishing a persons overall passion and purpose in life is one of the highest priorities. There are processes available to help confirm and document passion and purpose. We want to help individuals understand that the pursuit and fulfillment of passion and purpose are ongoing processes throughout life.
4. We suggest that you stop testing and start using quality communication tools and assessments. Most tests are best used as screening tools, not career development.
5. Engage the participant in the discovery processes. Design it in such as way that the process can be used independently by the participant on an ongoing basis. Example: Richard Knowdell, Founder of Career Planning and Adult Development Network, created a powerful yet simple Skills Sort card deck. The participant is part of the process that once learned, can be revisited and completed an unlimited number of times.
6. Avoid shallow processes. Many career professionals have told us that they are using certain resources because they are cheap and easy to use, not because they provide in-depth results and a quality experience. Career professionals justify this by saying it gets their clients started and its better than nothing. We disagree. Our suggestion is this: Rather than confuse participants with incomplete experiences and content, avoid the use of inferior resources altogether.
7. Acknowledge that principles and practices are far more powerful to the client than the recommendation of a specific career. Values identification, skills, interest confirmation processes, and confidence-building methods equip the individual for the future.
8. Finally, if you are a career professional who is not on purpose and passionate about your life, then you have not earned the right to help others in their life/career planning process. Authenticity is critical and required for helping others in their life plan.

With individuals now having over eight jobs in their lifetime on average, it is possible that the concept of a career is an anachronism. Many of the responsibilities and jobs you will engage have not yet been invented. Therefore it is necessary for you and your clients to be grounded in your interests, your core values, your passion, and your purpose. That is far more useful than any industry job code.

"The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79."
Douglas Adams, English Humorist and Novelist
1952 - 2001

By: Ken Keis

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Ken Keis, MBA, CPC, is an internationally known author, speaker, and consultant. He is President and CEO of CRG Consulting Resource Group International, Inc., Many professionals herald CRG as the Number One global resource center for Personal and Professional Development.

For information on CRG Resources, please visitcrgleader.com

For information on Kens Training and Speaking Programs, please visit kenkeis.com