The increasing rate of change globally and technologically is calling for a personal redefinition of career success. Over the last twenty to thirty years, it has become increasingly common for people to switch jobs, change roles within an organization and even careers every 2.5 to 3 years or even less. The Baby Boomers, a huge demographic, now just beginning to enter retirement years, are still holding down jobs their kids, now young parents, struggling to pay their rents, are hunkering after. The Information Age is both creating frustrations for traditional job seekers as well as enabling a new kind of “out of the box” approach and opportunities for personal career management for the creative, adventurous and technologically-savvy entrepreneur.
Navigating career opportunities and threats is a personal responsibility.
Effective career management is a discipline that cultivates awareness to external factors (shifts in marketplace activity, trends, and demands) as well as to internal dynamics including personal challenges and psychological or emotional barriers to skills development towards enhancing career potential.
How effectively you balance these two dynamics depends on several factors – your capacity for personal leadership – to lead and manage yourself, your network development skills and your habitual patterns of response shaped by personal biases and professional blind spots.
As Baby Boomers retire, talent shortages will increase and company loyalty and employees willingly sacrificing their life-work balance for career promotions will become a thing of the past. A growing number of employers are recognizing that they need to foster workplaces of choice to attract and retain top talent.
So, while it currently may seem like a wild and turbulent job market, there are major trends driven by the aging boomer demographic, and geopolitical and technological developments that promise to significantly transform the playing field in the next ten to fifty years. The key question to ask yourself remains, as always, “What do I want?”
To “Know Thyself” is the first rule of career success, for to know yourself is to trust yourself – to own your talents, skills, and attributes, invest in them and apply them to a given situation, on your terms. In short, to leverage yourself for the good of the whole and be recognized, validated and paid for this service will have you living life on your terms… for as Aristotle is quoted as saying, “Where your talents and the needs of the world intersect, there lies your vocation.”
Juggling the complexities of the everyday lifestyle and work demands of the 21st century requires far more resilience, emotional intelligence, mental agility and discipline than ever before. A new commitment to developing life and career management skills and cultivating personal leadership capacity is a sound investment towards navigating the volatility of the 21st century. It’s what mindfulness coaching can help you achieve and fast! If you live in Toronto, you may want to attend the personal leadership development workshops I offer on a regular basis. Check out the Events calendar for details.
This article was first published in the August 2014 edition of Worldwide Coaching Magazine
About Julia von Flotow
