Set Your Own Career Path

This week I attended a conference in beautiful southern California. It was successful few days full of great information and good meetings. If you’ve never attended a conference or trade show for your industry I highly recommend it. Going to one will truly give you a much larger view of the field you work in. In addition to that you will always gain some unexpected knowledge as well. The theme for me this time around was to make sure to set your own career path.

We often hear the old saying “you have to look out for yourself”. Yet many people, myself included, hate to reference this saying because it has a selfish tone to it. While that is accurate there is still a lot of truth behind it. If you do not set the course for your career path, no one else will. For me this lesson is most prevalent when I run into former friends/co-workers at events such as this. Within two or three days’ time I always come across the good, the bad, and the ugly as far as career paths go. Remember people…do not end up being one of the latter two.

So what do these categories actually look like? Here are some examples I came across this trip.

• The Good: the individual who setup goals, took the time to understand their industry career options, and then found a company/culture that suited their interests. When you ask how they are doing they reply “life is great”.

• The Bad: the individual who failed on one or even two of the points above. They may have failed to set goals, didn’t understand their career, or signed up for a bad company. When you ask how they are doing they reply “I’m OK or not too bad”.

• The Ugly: the individual who coasted along to the point that it’s now become a disaster. They are failing all three areas above and are essentially lost in the shuffle. When you ask how they are doing they reply “it sucks,  I hate it, or it is what it is”.

One of the most common reasons for these failures is the fact that people do not set their own career path. Instead they wait for either their company or boss to do it for them. While both your company and boss may have good intentions, I can promise you they will not do this for you. I’ve worked for various companies small, large, and global sized. Every single one of them advertised this feature, but none of them followed through. There are multiple reasons for this, but don’t dwell on the negative. Most importantly understand how your industry works, set milestones to accomplish your goals, and pick the right company to help your interests. If you piece together those three basic principles you’ll make it farther 90% of the people trying to advance. Further more you’ll never have to lose sleep wondering if you are headed in the right direction.