Choosing Your Career Options With Care

When you pull together your achievements (ok I know thats the hard part so just think about things that you are proud of) some of them probably took more out of you than others. So although these are often suggested as the best way to start your decision-making, just think a little deeper. You might have enjoyed doing them once but could you, or would you want to keep on doing them.

For example, my wife often says the meals I cook up at home for both of us and sometimes our adult children would go down really well in a restaurant and I could charge top dollar for them. Although I really enjoy cooking like this (I do a really good chili-con-carne), when choosing career options, I would not even think about doing it every night for dozens of people.

Let me illustrate this further by drawing a square box for you.

I divide this box into four by drawing a horizontal line across the middle and a vertical line up through the middle. The horizontal line we're going to call "Enjoy Doing" with a scale running from left to right. The vertical line we're going to call "Good At" with the scale running from bottom to top; what we've got now is a 2 x 2 quadrant so admired by MBAs. Bear with me, it is a great help in choosing your career options with care.

First thing we see then is that the small square at the top right is where the high scales of "Good At" and "Enjoy Doing" end up and this is where we all want to be if we are choosing options. We'll come back to that.

At the top left we've got high "Good At" with low "Enjoy Doing" so this is often where we've developed a high level of skill to deal with a task that's unavoidable but we don't want to do any more than is strictly necessary. I mean who enjoys driving these days?

Some people who don't manage their careers too well often end up here because their organizations push them to where they're seen to be good. Think about the Finance Assistant who ends up as Credit Controller because they had some success getting some bills paid.

Lower left is where too many people find themselves jobwise - doing something they don't enjoy and are not particularly good at. This is where necessity and stress sometimes come head-to-head causing regular sick-leave and you'd be advised to try and change this if its you.

Lower right in my quadrant is where enjoyment is high but skill not necessarily so. The person who enjoys amateur dramatics may be an example or a spare-time painter or the average DIYer.

Back to the top right: success usually springs from enjoying and being good at something, but only if you want to repeat it. When you are choosing options bear this in mind and don't start with a job title. Instead start with the ingredients of a successful role based on your honest appraisal of what you enjoy and want to do plus an objective view of what you are good at and can replicate.

Take my 2 x 2 quadrant and see where you fit in. If you are firmly in the top right CONGRATULATIONS, make sure you stay there. If you're anywhere else visit the Career Options pages of my website for further advice.