Pursusing passions or paying the bills in a career?

Scott Adams (creator of the successful Dilbert comic strip) posted an interesting article on the secret of his success on the Wall Street Journal. He downplays pursuing your passions in favor of just trying something and always being on the lookout for something better. Obviously this approach appears to work for Scott, who has achieved his definition of career and financial success, because he's worth somewhere around $75 million as of this posting and loves what he does. Does this mean that passion is irrelevant in your job search and career progression?

I often meet with people who tell me that their day job is miserable, and they would rather pursue their passions - but they are blocked by one or more of the following:

• financial obligations: mortgages, college loans, retirement planning, credit card debt
• lifestyle choices: car payments, parental or spousal expectations, cost of living concerns
• personal reasons: too old/young, lacking education or experience

These are all valid considerations before making a major career change, but they shouldn't permanently derail your dreams and aspirations. If you are passionate about something, whether it's a cause, activity, or invention, then you're going to think of ways around those challenges. Pursuing something that you care about and that you feel is a good fit will also help you get back up after life knocks you down.

If you are working a job or industry that makes you miserable, how likely are you to keep getting back up after a setback? Can you imagine how someone who loves his or her job will react differently to a setback than someone who is just collecting a paycheck?

In addition, each of has a limited amount of time in this life to work and make a living. Using your passions and interests as a way to filter out the noise and target opportunities to pursue can give you a degree of control and mission that is otherwise lacking in your job search. Knowing what you care about and believe in will help you decide which opportunities to pursue and which ones to avoid.

This bring us back to whether you should pursue your passions or a paycheck as your top priority. From my experience, this is a false choice, and you should look for ways to achieve both. You will be more fulfilled and successful if you love what you do and it can support your lifestyle. Start exploring what really motivates you and use this as a starting point for your next career move.

Gaining control over your career

A lot has been said about how "the good old days" of working for only one company from mail room to corner suite, are long gone. I agree that it's highly unlikely that you will work for one company throughout your career, as the US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates here. The question is how do we gain control over our careers if we can't count on regular promotions within the same company? I often see people pursuing expensive advanced college degrees without a plan to use them, attending college and not graduating, or sitting around fearful that they will be laid-off.

A better approach is to acknowledge the reality that you're facing, and then come up with a plan to address it or at least mitigate the problem as best you can. Start with an objective look at yourself, including your strengths and weaknesses. There are assessments you can take, some for a fee, that will help cut through the noise and point you in the right direction. Another option is to talk with someone older and more experienced than you. The key is to find objective feedback about your interests and skills. Do you have the necessary skills and drive to succeed where you are?

When you know areas to develop, establish some goals for yourself, write them down, and share them with someone close to you - perhaps a good friend or significant other. Perhaps your goal is to learn a new technology or find a new mentor. You want people around you who will question you and drive accountability. It's easy to daydream about where you want to be and what you want to do, but if someone else knows about your dreams and aspirations, then you're going to feel more "on the hook" to get moving.

Secondarily, this gives someone else the chance to verify that your goals make sense. If you're terrible at algebra and your goal requires a lot of higher mathematics, then you need someone close who can speak some truth to you BEFORE you start down that path. Someone who knows you well can also point out potential pitfalls and maybe help you break the problem into smaller pieces. Many people get stuck staring up at a mountain of tasks before they can break off a manageable chunk and get started.

Next, setup a calendar with weekly goals. This step is very important, partially to drive accountability, but primarily to setup a record that you can look back on and realize that you're making progress. If you don't see regular progress, then you're going to become demotivated and remain stuck in a rut.

Ask yourself these questions today:

1. What are your skills and interests? Are you using your skills and pursuing your interests today? If not, why is that?
2. What are some reasonable goals you can set for yourself to use your skills, or to enhance your skills? What are you missing and what would you like to see in yourself in 5 years?
3. Who can act as a soundboard and motivator for you? Who cares about your success and happiness? Discuss your goals with this person.
4. What can you do this week to move towards accomplishing yours goals? Break this task into smaller pieces until you know you can finish something this week.

Try it out for a few weeks and make sure to check your progress. If you're not progressing, break your tasks into smaller chunks, check your assumptions with that close friend, and proceed.

Help for the Long Term Unemployed

The term "long term unemployed" gets tossed around so much that we should start with a working definition of this group. For all practical purposes, these are people who:

1. were previously working, 
2. lost their job due to a variety of factors, and 
3. have been without work for at least 6 months. 

These people, all 4.7 million of them at last count, are struggling to find a toehold back in the workforce, but their challenges are different from other people who have not worked in a long time:

• Students graduating from college after 4 or 5 years,
• People (predominantly women) returning to the workforce after taking time off to raise children or care for someone else,
• Military personnel who have recently been discharged and have not held a civilian position in several years.

Each of those above groups will find their own challenges in locating a suitable position, but the long-term unemployed also have to content with the stigma of being unemployed. It's easier to explain that you were in college, raising kids, or serving your country, but what do you say about your time if you have been unemployed for over a year?

We know that you should never lie on a resume, so how do you contend with possible employer concerns about your skills or productivity?

Keep your skills sharp

Get involved! Can you volunteer your services at a local charity or non-profit? If so, you'll also increase your network and maybe hear about some new opportunities that don't make it onto the online job boards.

Consider taking some classes or embarking on a self study course. There are tons of free classes out there now for self-motivated people who want to increase or maintain their skills and knowledge.

Consider a change
 Don't get stuck in a resume rut. Consider changing your resume from chronological to functional, so that you can highlight your skills and accomplishments instead of gaps or the last job you have 7 months ago.

That work you did for the non-profit? That now goes onto your resume. The skills you picked up taking online classes? Those can be used to freshen your Linked In profile and bolster your resume.

Maintain structure

Have you noticed that it's hard to get much done without work commitments to keep you motivated? Guess what, as an unemployed person, your full time job is looking for a job. Keep that frame of mind and we'll talk about how that looks in another post. To get you started, consider setting aside some time each day for learning. Employers want to know that you can learn quickly if they hire you, so keep exercising that brain "muscle."

That should get you started. For those of you in this situation, what have you seen that worked or didn't work for you?

Solve the important problems to get ahead

If you only do one thing for your career today, watch this video from Stanford's Entrepreneurship Corner. There are some solid nuggets of career advice in there, but the main one we're talking about today is what I call "solving the important problems", otherwise known as "how to get promoted."

The job description that you responded to initially, interviewed, and negotiated your salary for is the bare minimum that is expected from you. If your employer just wants that particular job done, they probably considered hiring a contractor. If you have a full time job with benefits, then your employer is hoping and betting that you will grow your skills and abilities to solve tomorrow's problems. In other words, if you simply do what is asked of you, your tenure at that position is likely to be short. Managers can't afford to hire someone each time the job requirements change and their employees have "topped out" their potential.

What this means for you is that your job description is the bare minimum to pull a paycheck. If you want to be promoted and offered new responsibilities, then you need to show that you:

1. Already handle the stuff you were hired to do,
2. See new problems that need to be addressed (your boss' or boss' boss' problems), and
3. Take action to propose a solution or solve those new problems.

Notice that I said "Propose a solution or solve" in #3. Seeing a problem, calling it out, and shrugging your shoulders doesn't help you much, and it may get you the reputation as a Negative Nancy (or Negative Nate). People probably know how bad it is. They generally haven't left it that way on purpose.

Show your employer that you're ready for the next promotion up, and you're more likely to get it. If you don't, then you have a real-world example to show your next employer when you leave to seek the next step in your career.

Annual Career Check-up

It's almost April. Where are you with your career goals for the year? Have you set them yet? It's time to take stock of your career and job. Sure, you can use the traditional "Annual Review" process, but that tends to fit a pre-determined format that may not meet you where YOU are in advancing or changing careers. Annual reviews are also often limited because:

1. Annual reviews tend to be focused upon your performance on a job you may or may not actually care about.
2. Career ladders and promotions are focused on limited opportunities within an organization or companies.

In addition, it's difficult to get solid, objective feedback from the people you work with. Research has shown that once humans make an initial impression, we seek data to support our impression (Hamilton & Sherman, 1994). We don't do so well taking into account data that challenges a position we already hold. Making your career choices dependent upon some one's subjective opinion of you can be a recipe for future problems when you find yourself in a new organization or sidelined by a surprise lay-off.

You should do a "Career Checkup" each year in a job and ask yourself (or your partner):

1. What marketable skills did you learn last year? If you didn't learn anything, is that because of a dead-end job or lack of motivation on your part? Be honest. How do you know those skills are marketable?
2. What marketable skills are you going to learn this year? How will you do that? What books will you read? What talks will you attend? What will you try?
3. Where is your current job heading in terms of new opportunities and new skills? I was talking to a friend recently who decided to leave his job because he couldn't see what he would learn in the next year. That's a bold move, but it paid off almost immediately when he began learning new technologies and increased his responsibilities.
4. Where can you best use your new skills? Will someone pay you more or give you more opportunities to stretch yourself at a new company? 

After your self-assessment, you should be able to clearly articulate what you learned last year, what you're going to learn this year, and how you're going to learn these things. Write it down. Talk about it with someone close to you.


Next time we'll talk about making your plans into reality.

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Hamilton, D.L. & Sherman, J.W. (1994). Stereotypes. In R.S. Wyer, Jr., & T.K. Srull (Eds.)

Handbook of Social Cognition (2nd Ed., Vol. 2, pp. 1-68). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.