Definition of career
: a profession for which one trains and which is undertaken as a permanent calling
: a field for or pursuit of consecutive progressive achievement, especially in public, professional, or business life
Two weeks ago, I spoke about 3 steps to creating your autobiography, this week I have suggestions for creating your career autobiography.
Our personal life is affected by our business life and sometimes the lines get blurry. When you’re in careers and professions like sales it’s easy for work to take over when you’re a high-achiever and enjoy what you’re doing.
Apart from writing and later updating your resume, do you sit down and reflect on what you’ve created to date in the area of business?
What achievements are you most proud of and what about them makes them special?
What if you listed all the jobs that you’ve had that you can remember from your childhood to date. List what your experience was, what you learned from it and if it influenced you to embark on your current career path?
Next, look at your strengths, both BP10™ and CliftonStrengths®. How many of your talents/strengths were used in each of these jobs?
I was talking to someone about this recently and was reminded of sales jobs I had as a kid that I had totally forgotten about. My dream, however, was to be an interior designer. That is until ended up in the hospital at 14, had a nurse that impressed me so much that I chose to become a nurse instead. I did a 180 from a hospital stay.
Now that doesn’t mean that I gave up on interior design; in fact, I’ve been practicing as I’ve moved around the world and lived in many places; the only difference is that it just didn’t end up being my chosen profession.
Is it important to you to climb the ladder and have the title or do you just love carrying the bag and interacting with people while selling them your product?
Many people get so focused on titles that they stop looking at how their current job contributes to their life and what becoming a manager, VP or CEO would mean to their life.
I’ve seen many great salespeople become managers and fail miserably. Not everyone is wired to be a manager just because they’re successful in sales. There are pros and cons with all careers and finding what’s a fit for you is the only thing that is really important.
What does success look like for you?
That’s one of the first questions to look at, especially when you start feeling like you’re losing your mojo. What makes you happy and what doesn’t?
There’s a lot of freedom when you’re in sales as long as you perform and serve your clients well.
Doing what comes naturally to you is important and you also need to make money to live. There are so many different types of sales positions, sometimes shifting to another product with a different sales cycle or a different corporate culture makes all the difference.
Assessments
What I love about assessments is that they help you identify talents that you may not have thought about marketing or investing in.
When you hear the same message said in different ways it’s sometimes easier to take that in. BP10™, DISC, Kolbe-A are some of the assessments I enjoyed taking from a business perspective. They give you a language to express the uniqueness of what you bring and added to that you have CliftonStrengths® that adds your “how” as a person and the “How to Fascinate” assessment that measures how others see you which I’ve found so far mirrors your strengths.
It takes a team using all their talents to successfully build, sustain and grow a thriving business.
What talents and strengths does your team excel in?
