Do I have to drive my career?

Posted by Amanda Whiteford

This question was put to us at a career conference last year and the answer is simple – if you don’t no one else will! It’s a fair question though – ‘drive’ suggests momentum, energy, progress. What if you don’t feel that way about your career? What if its right for you to focus on other things right now? So, as with all good decisions, let’s look at the pros and cons before deciding on a final answer.

The advantages of driving your career:

• Only you know what you want from your career at any given time so if you are in the driving seat you can steer yourself towards opportunities of interest, let people know what you’d like to achieve, become involved in or gain insight to
  
  
• When we drive our career, we take time to reflect on our strengths – especially those that energise us and set us apart from our peers – and this makes it easier to build our brand and reputation, to let others know what we love doing and what particular achievements have brought us pleasure and excitement
  
  
• Knowing our weaknesses also becomes important so we manage them well and it helps us understand which opportunities to accept and which to refuse
  
  
• Having that focus and personal insight imbues us with energy which, in turn, will build our confidence and ability to take the initiative
  
  
• It also builds a positive reputation which, in turn, will gain the attention of managers in the organisation who are always looking for people interested in helping them achieve their goals and perhaps who they might develop into leaders for the future
  
  
• Equally, if there are times when you need to balance your work life with home life demands you know when to take your foot off the accelerator and cruise for a while – producing good quality work but without a stretch or challenge which would overload you. This keeps us healthy and feeling in control
  
  
• All this leads to self-directed development that’s of immediate importance and relevance to us and more likely to allow us to see the readily available development opportunities that exist day-to-day at work, but which are often overlooked – like joining or supporting new projects, volunteering for additional responsibilities, gaining a mentor
  
  
• Most of all driving our career will keep us employable – we remain aware of changes within our organisation and industry. Even when we may not want too much of a challenge or a stretch, we will know what to do to keep our skills up-to-date

The disadvantages of driving your career:

• It takes time, we have to think about more than just our day-to-day work
  
  
• We have to keep up-to-date with changes in our industry, with new tools, techniques and programmes, or what our competitors are doing so we know whether the direction we are travelling in remains desirable and right for us
  
  
• We have to be self-motivated and review our progress regularly
  
  
• We have to make an effort to build networks, to let others know what we’ve achieved and what we’d like to aim for in the future

What are the advantages of NOT driving your career? Against the lists above, almost nothing! The disadvantages though are clear:

• If we are passive about our careers, waiting for others to notice our work – brilliant though it may be – we put our destiny ‘in their hands’, and they may be busy doing other things
  
  
• Our approach to life remains in the parent-child domain, waiting for permission to do things others simply grab, this puts us on the back foot – permanently
  
  
• Passivity never attracts the attention of managers, we appear to lack energy and enthusiasm
  
  
• This, in turn, will lead to people assuming we are not interested in progressing our careers and in opportunities they might otherwise have suggested to us – in other words, we are overlooked
  
  
• Worst of all we are likely to become blinkered in our approach to our own development and our skills and knowledge may become out-dated leaving us vulnerable when change occurs and new skills and attributes are required

TAKE AWAY
You’ve guessed it, I’m biased in favour of us all driving our careers but hopefully, the arguments above will convince you to join me in believing in the value of driving your career and in making the time to do so. As the saying goes, luck is when preparation meets opportunity!