Careers

"When a person acts in accordance with his nature and realizes his full potential, he will do good and be content." Aristotle.

Life quickly becomes a narrative. Does your career path allow you to "tell a good story"? Often as the years go by it becomes irrelevant whether or not you where particularly successful in a particular job but the fact you did it will help support the person you've become. If you give the impression of status; it will be assumed that your past was successful despite it potentially being a house-of-cards.

Many people look back over their career and don't acknowledge the opportunistic approach they and the majority take to career progression. Moving when they are unhappy, when they get fired or when they get offered more money. But place a story, a context, around their past to make their path a deliberate, well considered journey which, as planned, brought them to this very stage of their career, makes others envious of the visionary approach and demands their respect.

So what can we learn from this inevitability. People crave status. But look at your past and your future. Although more honesty in the world would be good, if many people play by different rules it forces the rest of us to join in.

Don't be afraid of change. You may feel you are unafraid of any man, but fear of the unknown is within us all. The anticipation we feel before entering a pitch black cave is only equalled by the sense of achievement we receive once it's explored.

So as many of the famous philosophers have said; you will only be truly happy striving towards your potential. Which may be doing the same thing day in, day out, but for many of us it is not a journey which we should expect to end. And is it really that difficult? It is your own self-confidence that defines the walls and restrictions.

Having employed a number of people I've learnt that 20-30% of a job is the technical understanding, something many people can learn with the right training, but the rest is aptitude and your ability to work with other people. If you are a well-liked individual then the world can be your oyster. If you are not well liked then you should be considering why this is – it probably comes down to self-confidence. Either way, you shouldn't see anything beyond your reach, depends on how much you want it.