Career Choices
By admin. Filed in career choices |Tags: career choice, career choices, career counselling, career guidance, dr seuss oh the places, dr seuss reading, job career advice, the places you ll go dr seuss
How did you choose your job/career?
Was it something that you were passionate about?
Did you choose your path in life?
Did you do what you thought your parents wanted you to do?
Before I share with you my thoughts on this matter I want you to watch this short video of an amazing book by one of my favourite authors, Dr Seuss.
I was fortunate to discover Dr Seuss early in life and still enjoy his timeless rhymes and silliness. This book has many life lessons that we all can learn from. Dr Seuss essentially distils life challenges, pleasures and achievements into a wonderfully illustrated storybook which takes about 5 mins to read. This book is for kids of all ages……
Many of us fall into a career via a series of non-choices. What do I mean by this? We don’t really make an informed decision about our future we just kind of “go with the flow”.
Perhaps things are different now and for some, there are psychological tests and career counsellors at school but certainly in the past we did what other people thought was best for us.
Following our parents’ professions or continuing on their businesses was very common.
As I try and advise my teenage daughter about subject choices in high school and help her decide on what university course would be most suitable I remember how I ended up doing medicine.
Now I must stop here and say that I love my job and find it satisfying to help people who are sick become well again but I didn’t initially pick medicine as my career because of a burning desire to be a healer.
I fell into medicine because I was good at maths and sciences and a teacher along the way said that I’d probably get into medicine.
I got the marks and so I embarked on a medical career.
At the ripe old age of 17 it’s difficult to choose how to spend the next 40 years of one’s working life.
The medical course was challenging and I got to see many aspects of other people’s lives that I hadn’t experienced before. Birth, death, and chronic illness made me see just how lucky I was and am.
I had always been told that good health was paramount but now I was seeing it with my own eyes.
The hardships that some of us have to endure during this life made me much more grateful for what I have.
As much as I still get satisfaction from my career, there are things that 20 years later I now find tedious and not as stimulating as when I embarked on my medical career.
As I reflect now, there are other career paths that I could have taken had I known that they existed.
What would my life be like now if I had made active choices at the age of 17 instead of choosing to road of least resistance?
This is a question that can never be answered and although I choose not to live in the past regretful of past choices, it is still an interesting thought to ponder…
As I have now taken the time to reflect on careers choices both for myself and for my children I have learnt that the most important thing to consider is what you are passionate about. If you chose to spend your time following your passions then work is definitely NOT a 4-letter word.
When you are passionate about how you spend your time you don’t perceive yourself to be stuck or trapped – you have all of the freedom that you want. Where passion flows prosperity follows.
I think that Richard Branson said it best: “I don’t think of work as work and play as play. It’s all living.”
Chris Howard has written a book on this very topic “Turning Passions into Profits” – check it out. There are many ideas in this book that I had never previously considered.
Tell me what you think.
Other Posts of Interest
