Importance of Career Path

In today’s workforce, the reality is that most workers are not happy where they work. The 2017 Gallup study on the “State of the Global Workplace” identified more than two-thirds of workers as disengaged, which suggests a lack of fulfillment with the nature of work, the organization itself, or both. Costs incurred due to lost productivity amount to upwards of $7 trillion — company losses and impact on the economy at large aside, we are ultimately concerned about what this means for employees everywhere.

Organizations and management can do a much better job at ensuring employees are engaged, we want to help you have a plan that allows you to capitalize on the opportunities you do have and be thoughtful about those you pursue.

Pursuing Money is not a Career Path

There a several key differences between a job versus a career:

• A job’s main benefit is the paycheck. In a career, the benefits include gaining the skills, network, and experiences needed to achieve lifetime career goals.
• A job requires you to be present during work hours (i.e., 8am–4pm or 9am–5pm) and you hardly bring work home. In a career, you constantly learn, build skills, and go up the ladder. You are emotionally investing more energy and time, which makes the money only a fraction of reason why you do what you do.
• Most importantly, in a job, you feel your presence benefits the organization. In a career, you ultimately invest in yourself.

A Princeton University study of over 400,000 people found that boosts in salary improved individuals “emotional well-being” up until the $75,000 of annual income mark. This makes intuitive sense, since those making significantly less than $75,000 worry about basic necessities such as food, rent, transportation and healthcare. Money alleviates these stress points but once you pass the threshold and can afford them, “higher income is neither the road to experienced happiness nor the road to the relief of unhappiness or stress.”

Career Path & Soul Searching

Once your basic needs are met (i.e., food, shelter, safety) you can start working on your psychological and self-fulfillment needs. The broad questions of what will make you happy or what do you want to do with your life are overwhelming for most. Luckily there are better frameworks to helps us think through the various parts of a career path. These exercises require self-reflection, honesty and patience.

There is a Japanese concept called IKIGAI or one’s individual life purpose. You can print your own version here.

On your own version of diagram, fill in the circles with your own answers to the following questions:

• What do you love? (i.e., passions, interests, curiosities) If you could do something everyday and money was not a worry, what would it be? What do you currently love about your job that you wish you could do more of? If you could instantly upload all books of one subject into your mind, what would that subject be and why? What activities leave you feeling energized? What about them made you feel energized?
• What do you believe the world needs? Based on your lived experiences, what does society need to be better at? Think of the superhero power you would pick and why? If you were to be the president of any non-profit, NGO, social impact organization — which one and why?
• What can you get paid for? What are skills and experiences you have that you could get paid for (don’t limit yourself to your existing jobs, think of skills that you can freelance, hobbies, side hustles, projects you work on outside of work)
• What you are good at? Think of your natural gifts, talents, and skills you developed over time (e.g., perhaps those you did not fully pursue them but you know you were a natural at). What do you currently love about your job that you do really well?

After you complete the diagram, find areas of overlap that fit into passion, mission, vocation, and profession. In order to get closer to the middle you will have to be creative and also honest with yourself on skillsets you might need to build as you start merging them together. The steps you need to get to each of those four areas of overlap and then to Ikagai should give you various next action items in your career life and beyond.