2
Nov
2009
Career Messages
I’m teaching a career course this term. My students are examining their career choices as well as the reasons behind their choices. In order to appreciate how we got to where we are today it’s often useful to reflect upon what influenced us as children and what continues to influence us.
Of course our parents and family help shape our view of “career”. The role models, values, and messages they sent us laid the groundwork for how we see the world. My mother, always the top 1 or 2 students in her class, was told she shouldn’t go to college because she needed to make money for the family. Instead she enrolled in a two-year secretarial program. My father was raised by a traveling salesman - this must have influenced his choice to stay with the same job for 45 years and turn down promotions that would have required him to move his family across the country.
Thankfully I received a clear message that education was important. My father later confessed that he sent me to college so I would find a nice husband but my mother was pleased that I loved my studies enough to pursue graduate education. On the other end of the spectrum, I had a friend when I was younger who told me he did not want to attend college because he didn’t want to be a “college boy”. No one in his family had been to college. Eventually, after marrying a college graduate he decided it might be a good idea and he later became a successful consultant.
This leads me to point out that messages we receive beyond the family also help shape us. Take just 2 minutes and consider the messages you have received along the way. For example, the type and quality of the educational system available to you likely shaped your attitude and view of what was possible. Stereotypes were also influential (what girls can do, what boys can do, what white folks can do, what Asians can do, what black folks can do, etc.). The condition of your neighborhood, prevalence of crime, or interaction with your neighbors also showed you a view of the world and what might be possible (or impossible) for you. Whether you came of age during a recession, war, cultural upheaval, or national crisis may have also helped shape your view of the world.
So many things help us form our view of what we can expect for ourselves. How we respond to our experiences helps us become who we are and what we are becoming. I believe that careers are an on-going process. Whether we have one career for 30 years or a series of jobs in that same time period we learn about ourselves and uncover which messages we received have served us well and which have blocked us from progress.
During my career I’ve re-shaped my view of the world many times over. My first job out of college was in the Men’s Department at Dillard’s Department Stores. I was asked to sort socks on my first day. I cried. A year later I was working as a social worker down in St. Petersburg, FL – making public presentations for the first time in my life and discovering that I had the fortitude to learn to do casework that was challenging and often quite intimidating. Eventually I entered graduate school and again opened my eyes to a new way of thinking and understanding the world around me.
With deep knowledge and well-honed skills I’ve learned that I can make a difference. Today I am fortunate to have opportunities to work with people who want to make improvements in their work lives. The situations I get involved in are often fairly intense – as a coach, teacher, and consultant. Last month I had three clients tell me that I had made a difference in their work lives. I appreciate the feedback. It helps me continue to shape the trajectory of my career, and gives me some satisfaction that I’ve begun to integrate the messages that have served me and to shed the messages that have blocked me along the way.
Visit me online now for a professional chat about your career:http://www.liveperson.com/dr-anne
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