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Today's Insights: Harvard's Ultimate Guide to Career Success - 3 Steps to Follow Instead of Chasing Passion
A good career plan can be a beacon to guide you on the path to the future. So what to do? This article proposes three major steps for career planning: don’t follow your passion, expand your future choices, and write a good resume for the future.
Two or three years ago, you were a young person who had just stepped into society. When you were looking for a job, you did not make a serious career plan. Just to cope with the job interview, you wrote a career development blueprint that you did not believe in. Now, you are no longer excited about this job. You find it neither challenging nor interesting. You really want to resign and leave, but you don’t know where the future is headed. At this time, what should you do if you are already confused? Many people will say that you just need to plan your career well. Indeed, a good career plan can be a bright light to guide you forward, but please be careful not to let it become a "dark" light and mislead you into a dead end.
"Harvard Business Review" proposes three major steps in career planning. On the one hand, it dispels common career myths, and on the other hand, it also points out practical planning methods.
Career planning step 1: Don’t follow your passion, but follow your dream.
Many career consultants and tons of career planning advice on the Internet will tell you to “follow your passion” and “do the job you love.” But this usually only works if your passion aligns with market demand and your abilities. In fact, what is more common is that the passion lasts only a few years, sometimes even less than a year; or you simply do not find a job that matches your passion. At this time, the curse of "follow your passion" will only increase your psychological burden and make you more self-blaming and hesitant.
We suggest that at this time you should instead "follow the bubbles." Imagine something rubbing against you until blisters form on your skin. Doctors advise you not to touch it as much as possible, but you still can't help but pay attention to it, and even want to prick it. Is there a kind of work that is like a blister? Although you will not succeed immediately after doing it, and it seems to take a long time to make progress, you still can't help but go back and do it? It may not be a job that you are passionate about or that brings you a lot of fun, but you still want to do it well, and it’s not because the project deadline assigned by your supervisor is coming soon, but just a little bit of progress is very significant to you.
This kind of "blister" is often in line with your values, because only a belief rooted deep in your heart will allow you to move forward bravely even when encountering setbacks, and you can grit your teeth and not complain about the pain while practicing in the theater. The values mentioned here are not something too abstract, but very specific tendencies, such as: solving big problems vs. paying attention to details, taking risks vs. avoiding mistakes, breaking away from convention vs. following tradition, etc. So when thinking about your future career, think about what your values are. If the future job aligns with your values, relies on your skills, or can be done well by simply improving your skills, it will be an option worth considering.
Career planning step 2: Career is not a straight line.
You must stay open and expand your options for the future. The traditional concept is that a career is a straight path and an upward ladder. When you enter an industry, you start from the lowest level, gradually accumulate skills, experience, and connections, and pass various assessments to be promoted to the highest position. But in today's era of rapid change, the future is difficult to predict. We can no longer guarantee that in five or ten years, the industry will remain the same and our skills will not be outdated.
Rather than thinking of your career as a linear progression, think of it as a winding path that is non-linear and constantly changes direction. This also means that we can no longer completely decide our career but must continue to adjust our career choices in response to various economic trends, technological changes, and other factors. At this time, what you should ask is, what should I do next to maximize my future career options?
If your value is to be brave and take risks, then you can think about whether there are any other industries or work fields outside of your current industry or work field that can also allow you to realize this value. To develop your non-linear career across different industries, you must first develop knowledge and skills that you can take with you. Skills limited to a certain field will greatly limit your options for the future. This principle is easy to understand. For example, many industries require data analysis. If you have this skill, whether you are in the fashion industry, food industry, or distribution, you can quickly enter the industry. You don’t have to worry about one day when a certain industry declines or stops.
If it's not what interests you, you won't find any other way out. In the same way, expanding your network will also help expand your future career options. "It's not the company that hires people, it's the people who hire people." One sentence explains the secret. The more people you know and the more industries you meet, the more likely you are to find another career path in another industry or at least another department.
Career planning step 3: Don’t shoot an arrow first and then draw a target.
Instead, start with the end in mind and write a good resume for the future. When we go out to find a job, we often shoot an arrow first and then draw a target. Take it one step at a time and just hope that one day you will meet the right company, get the right salary, and settle down there until you retire. However, if you don't draw the target first, you won't know which bow to use, which arrows to use, or even which direction to aim.
At this time, please reverse your original approach, start with the end in mind, and imagine in advance which industry you may be in or want to be in in 5 or 10 years (not too long), and what goals you want to achieve in that industry. In other words, write your future resume first. For example, you can list on your future resume what positions you want to obtain, what projects you have completed, what hard and soft skills you have learned, and what important connections you have made. If you are not sure about the content of your future resume, you can research the expertise, experience, and connections of people in the same industry or other industries that you want to emulate. After you set your goals, work backwards step by step and think about the milestones you want to accomplish each year or every other period. You can write down some important dates in your calendar, such as performance appraisal time, license exam application deadlines, and project completion deadlines. With these specific dates in mind, you can develop a specific plan of action to help you reach each milestone.
Conclusion: In today's rapidly changing era, career planning is no longer the same as in the past, where you could look ahead to development twenty or thirty years from now. You have to keep looking for the next level of your career on a non-linear path. "Harvard Business Review" recommends that instead of focusing on passion and long-term planning, it is better to focus on identifying your "blisters", staying open to the future, and starting with the end in mind to plan a successful career of your own.
