My Goal, My Career, My Life
A new year is upon us. A new decade too. The honeymoon period is over. The reality strikes, with all its possibilities, opportunities.
Career is at the core of existence for many of our clients. They hire a coach to maximize their professional potential if hired by their organizations or themselves. Thankfully, ICF defines coaching in terms of maximizing potential, personal and professional. As such we encourage our coachee, and their stakeholders to look at it in the totality, holistic development of the individual leader.
What happens when a career is at the core of our very existence?
For someone who had built his entire idea of himself around his career, any minor crisis can lead to an existential crisis.
Personally, what I do has been at the core of my self-image. During my 21 year-long corporate stints, and as an entrepreneur for last 7 years! I wonder was it something I picked up from my parents’ generation, or parents specifically, or the whole upbringing where even education was about landing a good job. The awareness helped me to handle it. Also, prioritize, make choices on a daily basis. The acceptance was easy for me, not so much perhaps for others in the family, colleagues and others?
Case study: Several years ago, one of my coachees was facing all sorts of struggles at his workplace. He was working with a reputed, old, European brand. But his boss was very desi! In the first conversation (discovery/chemistry session) between us, one of his takeaways was, ‘career was very important to me. That was not everything. It was just one of the few important things in my life’. That was a liberating moment for him, and his career has taken off since then.
Case study: A friend (Dan, the name changed of course) lost his uncle recently, passed away in his sleep. A lucky exit for the uncle? What bothered Dan was, ‘If I were to die in my sleep, I would die very unhappy’! Because he went to sleep almost every day unhappy. If not a bad day at work, or an argument at home, or frustration about himself. What to do?
Three learning resources I came across resonated:
I always look for these inspirations, Universe conspiring, not by chance.
1. Simon Sinek’s video :
Ceramic vs Styrofoam cup: This particular video, featuring #SimonSinek is trending. How a Government official experienced a 5 start hospitality the previous year, and a totally different experience this year. One point of view was that hospitality was for the role he played. Hence a ceramic cup last year to a styrofoam cup this year! A good metaphor.
2. What happens when your career becomes your whole identity
“Psychologists use the term “enmeshment” to describe a situation where the boundaries between people become blurred, and individual identities lose importance. Enmeshment prevents the development of a stable, independent sense of self.”
3. Addiction or Resistance? J Krishnamurti
“the man who loves his work is so enclosed in it, so enmeshed, that it becomes an addiction”. The teacher also speaks the distinction between work as addiction or resistance, and also being ‘enmeshed’!
But then, even an astrologer making predictions of a baby would say s/he is lucky to pursue a career of an area of his/her interest.
One of the most popular definitions of work is from Gita, ‘nishkama karma’, to work for itself, not for any fruits thereof.
What does work mean to you?
