Don't use your skills to decide your career path

mapmaker.curtrosengren.com

So often I see people ask, "What skills do I have," and then use that laundry list to identify the potential careers they can pursue.

I would suggest that that approach is backwards. A career that you technically have the skills to do may or may not be a career you love. I've seen a lot of people who are unhappy in careers they are good at.

An awareness of your skills is important as you map out your career, no doubt about that, but as I see it identifying your skills is less about defining, "What could I become," and more about answering the question, "What tools do I have to get me where I want to go?"

Recently I refined the system I developed to help people through this process, The Occupational Adventure Guide, to reflect that notion. I added the idea of creating a Travel Toolkit. Your Travel Toolkit is filled with all the tools in your possession that you can use to help you move towards your goals. Those tools include your skills, knowledge, lessons learned along the way (i.e., what you learn from making mistakes), and external resources you can leverage.

Ultimately, the question isn't, "What careers are out there where I can use these skills?" Once you have identified a career path that will energize and engage you, the questions are:

• What skills do I have? How can they help me create the career I want?
• What skills am I missing? How can I develop them? What could I do to compensate for those skills I lack?

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Brought to you by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Comments

[Jim Durbin]

I'm right with you Curt. I just recently started a business completely outside of my scope of the skills on my resume.

It has had little effect on my ability to prospect, as my industry didn't exist a year ago.

The skills I lack, those are the things that are going to keep me interested and interesting.

[Hiren Shah]

To put things in a nutshell, follow your heart more than your head in deciding your career-don't decide on the basis of what you know but who you are.