Effective Business Ideas

Advance Your Career

How can you effectively advance your career? You may have tried Goggling career advancement. What you get is links to tests, lists, and degrees. And how these help you get headed in the right direction? Tests may say that you are good in this area and a degree may say you are qualified to start out in this area. However what tells you that you will be fulfilled, satisfied and happy in an area?

Traditional career advancement planning involves setting a career goal and adding steps you need to complete so you will achieve that goal. Good sound advice and utterly wrong-headed in most cases. Of course it is important to have a goal. Without a goal and steps you will never move forward. My point is that it needs to be the right goal. Your goal should be to have a rewarding career that matches your lifes purpose; not a particular job description.

Be Effective, Plan with Purpose
Job Description - When a job description is your goal you will have blinders on as you run down the road. All you see are the steps needed to get the degree, then the experience, and then the title and money. What happens if someone brings you an idea that doesnt fit the plan? You usually dont even hear them. All your focus is on the plan.

Lifes Purpose - When planning is congruent with you lifes purpose you will find that your view widens to include all the jobs that fit within that frame. What this means is that you look at jobs and careers that match with your purpose. If one aspect of your purpose is have peace in your life then you will find yourself attracted to situations that promote peace, setting that are peaceful, and/or companies that work toward peace.

Will planning with your purpose in mind mean that you will never have to think in terms of a job description? No. However, it will help you to see beyond the immediate description and think about the larger aspects of how a job will help you to fulfill your purpose. Will you be able to stop making three year plans? No. Planning is a good thing as long as it is aligned with your purpose.

The important thing to remember is to find out what your purpose is first. Dont wait till you are a long way down the road to find out it isnt taking you where you want to go.

Fritz M. Brunner, Ph.D. 2005