Choose A Love Like It’s Your Career, Choose a Career Like It’s Your Love
It’s been weeks since I’ve even wanted to write an Alpha Female Society post, but I recently read a quote which prompted an inevitable spark of inspiration. The quote went something like this,
“Be with someone who encourages you to grow, who won’t cling to you, who will let you go out into the world, and trust that you will come back.”
I realized that this quote applies not only to a person’s personal life, such as their significant other or their close friends, but also to a person’s career. Very few people I know, I have found by a casual survey and through conversations with various persons who shall remain anonymous, can ultimately say that they really, really love their job. Most people in the corporate world, in fact, feel stuck in a 9-5, dead-end job. I feel like one of the lucky few who can wants to scream from the rooftops,
“I ACTUALLY REALLY, REALLY LOVE MY JOB. I ACTUALLY REALLY LIKE WORKING. WORKING GIVES MEANING! WAIT, STOP GIVING ME THAT LOOK. AM I WEIRD?”
Of course, I did not always love what I did. I had to do various positions in various areas and settings for me to realize what a dead-end position was and which positions had room for growth. Eventually, life has a way, and so does networking and hard work. Hard work alone will not work for most people; networking is the key factor, and this goes for any job, not just the corporate jobs. We have to work with others at some point, unless we want to be completely alone and isolated from the big, big world out there.
On top of that, I never wanted my life to be completely about work. I love working, but it is not my only focus in life. One day I want to settle down and have a family, while still keeping my career on track. I realized that one of the ways I could accomplish having both of these things was to choose a career wisely. In turn, I also need to be with a partner who would understand the sacrifices that we would have to make to be with each other, a partner who would understand that I wanted to be both a homemaker and a city loving, urbanite.
I decided to live life in a way where I can choose my love like I would choose a career and to always choose a work position like it’s the love of my life. Now, let’s go back to the quote:
“Be with someone who encourages you to grow, who won’t cling to you, who will let you go out into the world, and trust that you will come back.”
This works both ways. Choose a partner and career that will help you grow professionally and emotionally, even if it is not instantly. It may take time and another perspective before you realize what the lesson of growth is here. Experience is a challenging teacher because you always learn the lesson in the aftermath.
Choose a partner and a career that won’t cling to you. You don’t want a partner who wants to be with you every minute of every day, and you should not have to be with that person all the time. It isn’t healthy and it isn’t fair to either person for their own personal sanity. By that same logic, you don’t want to have a career that needs you to be there every day of every year. As you move up the corporate ladder, or if you are the president/CEO/founder of your company—I’m lucky in that I have the blessing, and curse at times, to be corporate during the week and part of a three-person startup (shameless plug www.conzerge.com ) doing the weekends—, you want to know you have the liberty and luxury to at least step away for a few hours. It gets tougher as your position or title becomes more demanding to find that fine line between the work/life balance, so it is crucial for you to be with a partner—assuming that you are in or want to be in a relationship with someone—who can respect demanding a career can be. At the same time, you need to make sure that your career is rewarding to you.
I understand that many people also do not have the skills, opportunities, or to put it bluntly, the simple choice to be able to have the luxury to move up or down the corporate jungle gym, as they say. I realize that this may not apply to those who are working minimum wage positions. At the same time, given the access we have to the Internet, technology, and those “archaic libraries”, we all still the opportunity to educate ourselves. Educating yourself is a career and a love in and of itself, all wrapped into one. Never stop learning for yourself, because ultimately, your knowledge and your skills will come with you to your deathbed. Always improve upon yourself for yourself.
Cheers!
XOXO,
Kelly
@AlphaFemSociety tweets by @BoBellerz
Alpha Female Society. 