When
3 years ago I came up with the idea of this blog, my aim was some kind of writing
exercise and I didn’t intend to actually share it with anybody. Obviously, not
more than one post came out of it. Now three years, a diploma, an internship, a
real job and two months of unemployment later the question of how to make a
living of something I really like doing is still keeping me busy. And trying to
find the answer for myself, I read, watch, collect and analyze tons of
information on this issue mainly online (LinkedIn groups and discussions,
updates from thought leaders, career-related publications, websites, blogs and
posts on FB and Twitter) as well as in good old papers or talks with family and
friends. Being not the only one concerned with the issue – as far as I know, at
least some of my friends and peers are having the same concern at the moment –
I cannot but start sharing the information and insights I already processed
myself. That’s why I decided to dust off my good old blog ‘In Search of My Professional
Self’ and to start posting again as the subject matter is relevant to me as
never before…
Another
reason I started contributing to my blog is maybe also a little, how should I
call it, pragmatic. Looking for a job now, I react to job openings of
communication professionals in a broader sense of the word. And then I already
know how it goes – picture a hypothetic conversation between me and a potential
employer:
EM:
So you have an ambition to become a copyrighter / communications specialist /
pr agent [the list may be continued]? Is there something of you we could read?
ME:
Well, my master thesis, I suppose, would that be all right?
EM:
Do you maybe also write other things, like articles or like a blog?
ME:
Nope…
EM:
Oh, well, don’t you call us, we’ll call you…
Enough
said, there’s nothing of me to read. Time to change this misconception.
So,
communications, huh? And this is really something you sincerely like and are
good at? I don’t know.
What
did you want to become as a child? Nothing in particular, grown-up, I guess.
Then
maybe at school there was a subject you were very good at? Well, like everything
actually, if you consider good grades an indicator.
Maybe
you had hobbies, did something artistic or were a member of some club? I danced
some, sang some and even painted some, but don’t remember being especially wild
about any of these.
How
did you come to choosing your college? I kinda only had a choice of two very
similar ones where I didn’t have to pay the tuition, so I just chose the older
one.
Did
you like what you studied at the college? I think I did, at least I didn’t hate
it. How much did you know of different professions before going to college? Close
to nothing!
I
think this might be my biggest problem. The changing education system of young
and independent Ukraine provided me with some profound knowledge of foreign
languages (in my case, English and German) and maths, but never gave me any
information on some kind of basic professional orientation. Maybe due to the
changing reality where the old occupational system was making place for the new
one, but my choice of a profession was left to my family or simply to chance. And
now 2 college educations further (my second one being closely related to the
first one, but then in the Netherlands) I still doubt the choices I made were
the right ones. And therefore looking for a job without a real focus of someone
who knows what he wants…
In
the Netherlands it seems to be a hype at least of the last decennia, that one
should choose a career according to his passion, or with other words, something
he likes most and therefore does best. Job coaches and trainers of different kinds
are there to help you find your passion if you still haven’t found it yourself.
Their services are tailor-made and customers of all ages are welcome. No wonder
I’ve been trying to find my passion as well, now it’s such a hot item on the
labor market and my previous job sort of turned out not to be a perfect match
with who I am.
A
critique to this craze with finding one’s passion I came across claims that you’d
better start doing something and give it as much dedication and hard work as
you can. Then in the process, making some little choices on the way, you’ll shape
you working reality to something one can call a “dream job”, a job with lots of
autonomy, some meaningful contribution to the society and something you feel
and know you truly are good at.
Whether
it’s pursuing your passion or just starting doing something and making it your
passion, I haven’t found out yet. And though my personal statistics isn’t that
bad – until now 1 job interview out of 10 applications – I’m 20 applications further
and am still searching and thinking. I’ll keep you posted…
What a great contribution, Olga, thank you very much. It seems to be a topic concerning a lot of people - I've got quite some reactions.
ОтветитьУдалитьThe idea of formal education making us follow the path of our parents and just "do normal" is something I've also been thinking of a lot. My experience is though that most of my Dutch peers had more freedom to choose what they wanted to study and do later in life from what they really liked, but this could be a mere coincidence. My boyfriend, for instance, went to a Montessori school and especially liked playing with a PC there. Later he grew up to become a successful IT-professional and there couldn't be a better job/occupation for him. Another friend of mine is a dance teacher. Somehow she picked the occupation herself by being a passionate dancer from her early childhood.
But I also totally agree with you that young children or even teenagers have little idea of what it is like to have a certain occupation and in how far this corresponds to their natural talents and skills. Obviously, these are questions you ask yourself later in life, while being more consciously busy with your professional development. One can be busy with this issue more or less depending on certain stages in life (like getting children, being in between jobs, changing a country of residence). And looking for something that truly makes you happy, and, ideally, lets you make a living of it, is a process. I do realize that. And honestly, I'm really happy for the people who have found it for themselves as such people make the society a happier one.
I am the perfect example of someone who grew up in USSR, with very pragmatic soviet parents and has been in sort of a box for most of her life.
ОтветитьУдалитьDon't get me wrong, being in a box isn't necessarily a bad thing. We all need sort of boxes, as they design a path and make a child/grownup more focused and aim oriented. When you are a child, the boxes come from the grownups, there is no other way, children's brain develops long enough and it takes time to be cognitively mature enough to be able to just "be" and "something will come along". Parents should recognize what their child is and let him. They are allowed to make mistakes, which means that this "being" might happen in another field. I am ok with changing the path if needed.
The main question is what is the path and how much we enjoy the journey, both in the childhood and especially when we are grownups and the feel of running out of time and opportunities is strong enough.
I have discovered a PC at school, I moved from Ukraine to Israel in 1998 and back then we could only dream about computers, here it was practically a usual thing. I loved playing with them, discovered internet, even took a class in programming. I didn't enjoy the last one though, however the satisfaction of creating something that can type on the screen or similar was pretty nice.
When one was asking me what I want to be when I grow up, I always said "something with Math and Physics".(after I gave up foreign languages, though I loved and still love them very much).
Well, I also loved Math in school(especially in Lyceum), I wasn't that good at Physics, but all my family was mechanical engineers, so I was sure it was my thing. I even tried to apply to the Math department at one of the best Universities in Israel, luckily I didn't make it.
When I was recruited to the army and was asked what I would like to do, I said "something with computers" without thinking too much.
I received an opportunity to be an IT in the Navy. I can't say I loved it, but out of the possible paths in the army, I got the most useful one. I use that knowledge till this very day and it was quite interesting, at least in the beginning.
Just before I reached University, I dated Computer Science Ph.D., and since Computer Science had both Math and computers inside, the decision was made.
I cried out all my tears during the first year. I suffered, I got bored at the lessons, I failed my finals, I did them again, it took me a really long time to realize that I simply don’t like it , that the degree is very hard and not that I am stupid.
The only course I got an 100(A), was "Introduction to the Psychology of the Music".
But we'll get to that later on.
I did graduate, with an average grade.
I started to work at my current place before the degree was over. I liked it. Big corporate company, travelling around the world, new people and of course - money.
In addition, I was progressing at my position, so I got promoted, and then I proved them again, and got promoted to what I am now. I liked it too. For a while. But then.. then I got bored, I lost satisfaction of our products and of my daily work. Business travels were a nice runaway, but it wasn't enough.
Around end of 2008 I started buying psychology books like crazy, first in Moscow, then all over. I was reading them for fun, and I knew that it really interested me. As I am ADHD, I could recognize when something draws my attention.
(cont.)The first though of "my career is very successful, I have enough money for almost everything I want, but I am not happy at what I do" came to my mind in the very beginning of 2011. It was a composition of getting bored at work + new love(and a lot of chemicals in my brain)+ watching people that love (or at least seemed to love) what they do .
ОтветитьУдалитьRight after that thought, the next one was "leave everything behind and go to study psychology".
But my pragmatic mind wasn't ready to leave the nice life I had.
I have convinced myself that I am just bored, because nothing can excite you forever.
The thoughts of going to study came and went through my mind during the last two years, and the only thing that held me back was the fear of leaving the comfort zone.
In the beginning of October 2012,I had a life changing chat with a friend of mine, on our way to the airport in Brazil, at some point of our soul conversation he said "you are gonna be a very good psychologist".
I started surfing the net and calling the Universities right after I landed.
My parents and friends thought I was kidding. I wasn't.
Here I am, in April 2013, in the middle of my first semester.
A lot of people do not understand me much, but I don't care.
So far I have mixed feelings : I do feel that I try to reach out to my dream, I still don't know what the outcome will be, I am lacking my free time like hell: I work full time job(very full) and I take two huge courses and I am young and not married(I need to go out too!). But , the studies are interesting, I read the text books and practically feel the neurogenesis working and my cerebral cortex expand :)
Maybe I will quit after one semester, maybe later, maybe I will become a psychologist, maybe not. But I am gaining knowledge, a useful one. And the most important thing: at the least I can say - I have tried.
And as passionate as I was when I wanted to go studying, it still doesn't mean that this is my calling.
I don't even know if everyone can have only one calling in their lives, I am also good at my job and, frankly, I was sure for a very-very long time, that I love it. And now I don't. Maybe it's like marriages, like monogamy, maybe it's a fake.
Maybe you can change your path once in a while or at least try.
Btw, you still do it in a sort of a box, otherwise, it doesn't really work: we all prefer laying on a couch, with minimum movement, eating chocolate snacks.
Eventually, if you do what you do, and you continue on doing it, it means that you don't dislike it enough. When you switch to another one, you just gain more.
I think that if one doesn't have a passion, the path should be figuring out what the passion is. I am closer and closer to the thought that self-exploration process is taking a lifetime, since as soon as you drain one thing, there are plenty of others to be explored and tested on yourself.
There is no perfect profession, like there are no perfect people, there are things that make you happy, and they also can make you said.
Lena, thanks a lot for sharing! Since I lost sight of you in the second year of the lyceum, it was nice to know what you've been up to all this time. And the second thing I realized after reading your post is that there's something bigger going on there. Wow, I'm not the only one with this kind of questions and dilemmas - a considerable number of people around me experience the same. It's not for nothing that I decided to start this blog.
УдалитьI think that the world of work and professional self-actualization (remember the Maslow's pyramid?) is changing. If a couple decades back only one career path was more or less common and career switches happened rather as an exception, nowadays it's normal that approximately every 6 years (I found the statistics on some Dutch career-related website) at least a little shift in one's career is being made. Probably because of the new technological developments people nowadays are more mobile, also career-wise. It seems like a very interesting topic for discussion and research and I'll be definitely looking at it with more scrutiny, so keep an eye on my updates, I should say. And may you be passing Amsterdam for your wonderful job involving so much travelling, just let me know - we could then have a nice chat about all this stuff.
I think hat Maslow pyramid has become even more relevant nowadays, as self-actualization has gained a new dimension - mobility.According to Maslow, it's not enough to have a career where you are appreciated, you have to be sure you appreciate it enough by yourself, while appreciating it today, doesn't mean it last forever.
ОтветитьУдалитьThe 21st century is indeed mobile, if you stay put, you don't survive.
And of course, I would love to meet next time i am around!