The Importance of Owning Your Own Career

The “It’s Your Career” series at Management Excellence is dedicated to offering ideas, guidance and inspiration for strengthening your performance and supporting your development as a professional. Use the ideas in great career health!

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Too many of us wait for someone else to create the circumstances that allow us to be happy in our work. Expecting someone else to lift us up from our current situation is a fool’s errand blended with a real life frustration dream. No matter how much we sulk or complain about our lot, the only person responsible for changing the situation is the one staring back at us in the mirror.

You own your career. Not your firm.

You own your professional development. Not your boss.

Ultimately, you own the task of finding and participating in work that leverages your superpower and feeds on your passion to do something.

Too many of us struggle with the internal knowledge that we have more to do…more to give, yet our daily work doesn’t leverage this drive to do or give more. Others move from role to role in pursuit of a paycheck and some sense of happiness, but fail to focus on and develop what I call their superpower… their unique, innate talent.

The business press talks about the high level of employees that describe themselves as “not engaged” in their work or their workplace. Instead of an engagement index, it’s more appropriately referenced as a misery index. From the latest report, it appears that there’s a bull market in professional misery.

Finding Inspiration:

In one part of my professional life, I teach. Over the years, I’ve developed relationships with a number of fine institutions from my community college to DePaul University in Chicago. I do this to give back…to serve and to ensure in part that I keep learning. (Yes, the teacher is often the beneficiary of ample wisdom and creativity from the students.) Whether the students are those just getting started or those starting over, I am consistently inspired by the many who are striving for something for themselves.

I am in awe of the single parents who hold down multiple jobs…days cleaning houses and evenings waiting tables, who enroll in online coursework to pursue a degree that will support their movement towards something they believe is more their calling. I would put some of these students up against the best of the more well-heeled classes. Their life experiences and common sense and passion for their coursework and for their advancement are remarkable and inspirational.

There are the military professionals in my courses across all institutions who are so passionate about and dedicated to their country that they deserve all of our thanks and respect. Often, I find them striving to gain the skills and knowledge to extend their service into something else that gives back. They teach us all to lead and think based on experiences that we as ordinary citizens cannot possibly relate to.

And there’s the mid-career professional returning to earn an MBA or other advanced degree. These people juggle demanding professional roles, travel and family in an exercise that is more about fortitude than intellectual challenge.

While education and training are important components of improving our situation, the moral to the story isn’t about going back to school, it’s about taking action to improve yourself. It’s about being accountable to yourself and not waiting for someone to come along and lift you up. Instead of wallowing in some state of unengaged misery, these people use their current situation as fuel to drive learning, improvement and change. They are accountable to themselves and they know that movement is required for change.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

I love working with and teaching and yes, hiring people who understand the importance of taking ownership of their own careers and their own development. There’s something about this person with a value set that emphasizes personal accountability that makes me want to do everything I can to help them along on their journey.

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