The "Career Management" Lifestyle - Introduction

I've been thinking alot over the past several days about what it is that prevents most job-seekers from being successful. And not only job-seekers, but employed people as well who seem to be stagnant in their jobs but resigned to accept their fate. So as I was working out at the gym I realized that career management is a lifestyle. It's a choice. A choice of empowerment over your own career. A set of behaviors that will dictate the quality of your work success and satisfaction. A way of thinking that will always keep your mind focused on creating value not only for yourself, but for those who you interact with.

We know the benefits of eating the right foods, routine physical fitness, daily meditation, practicing our faith, and many other healthy practices. These become part of our lifestlye and affect the way we live each day. You shouldn't wait to have a health problem, before you go to see a doctor. If at all possible, you shouldn't wait until you have a problem before you take action to seek a solution. Just as successful businesses practice preventative maintenance, balanced scorecard, and research & development in order to stay in business - so should you! Imagine if Microsoft Corporation in the 1980's had just stopped with the creation of the Windows operating system for personal computers. Then they never would have developed all of the other services, products, and applications needed to take advantage of the internet boom in the 1990's!


Since we know the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle and practicing the routine behaviors required to support and improve that lifestyle, then why don't we apply that to our careers? When it comes to career management, there is a tendency for many people to not take an active role in defining and shaping their professions to add maximum value to themselves and to those around them. Don't be the person who languishes in a dead-end job for fear of change. Or the person that goes to work each day to a job that utilizes 10% of his talents. Or the person that continues to counduct an ill-fated job search campaign. That's poor career management and a poor lifestyle. And poor career management is the equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes each day - eventually you clog your roads to success.


So what is living the "Career Management" Lifestyle? It's a lifestyle that involves you doing the daily, weekly, and yearly activities required to maintain your professional health. It's a set of repetitive actions that will always allow you to expand your mind, integrate new information, and add value to yourself and those around you. In the following blogs, I will write more about the Career Management lifestyle and how you can implement it into your daily routine. You won't see the results after two weeks any more than you'd expect to lose 50 pounds after two weeks at the gym. But if you make the set of practices that I will share with you a part of your daily routine, then you will have healthy career choices for the rest of your professional life.

Stay tuned for the rest of this series!