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What is a career?

I am a person that sets goals in life. #career-choice #career-choice

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Subject: Career question for you

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Mickael’s Answer

Hi Lwandle

I am not sure I understand the meaning of the question: what kind of answer do you expect?

I can just copy/paste the definition of the word career in here but I doubt that is what you expected. I believe a career is what you want to do in your professional life.

You can set goals as a step by step to become what you want to be or you can simply have a broader goal in your professional life. Then what is happening within that goal is a day-to-day decision. For example, you can have a career of being a software developer and whatever you develop is good. Or you can want to be the expert in Unix Operating System and therefore need to set up goals to reach this overall one.

What is a career? This is what you want to do for your professional life. You can have different career plans based on the time. After school, I want to be (1) but 5 years after that I would like to be more (2) and then evolve towards (3)
Replace (1), (2) and (3) by your own personal vision of your future.

I hope that helps.
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Josée’s Answer

The word Career can have many definitions and by asking the question, it gives you the opportunity to think about the one you would like. My original definition of a career went like this: A career should be something that makes you a lot of money, that you should work really hard at and strategically think about in order to have an advantage over others. Liking what you do was not a consideration and as a woman, I thought I would need to work harder in order to succeed. After 20 years into my evolving career, my definition could not be more different. If this sounds fun, I would suggest a creative writing exercise right now where you can describe what you think the society tells you what a career should be as well as what messages you have received from your culture and your family of origin. (Example: society says I should choose a high paying job, my family says only being a lawyer/doctor/engineer makes someone successful). In the second part of the exercise, write what a dream career definition would be for you. You can then compare both and take steps to orient yourself towards what inspires you. The unconscious messages we have received from our environment have varying degrees of impact on our personal views and its a liberating exercise to determine your own opinion & goals. Here is my definition now of what a career can be: A career is the expression of the unique gifts you have as a person in a way that serves others and yourself in a fair energetic exchange, which can be money or something else. In this definition being a stay at home mom would be as rewarding as being a lawyer or a doctor if its your calling. Personally I now measure how successful I am by how "happy" I feel. Your career could also be one "job" or many. Its helpful to think about it as a journey where you keep clarifying what are you interests & unique gifts/skills. Its a lifelong path with no wrong turn, just decisions that help you learn more about yourself. A last idea that has helped me throughout the years, whenever I lean towards a decision because one of the options scares me, I stop and slow down until I can see an option my heart is calling me to. Happy seeking!

Josée recommends the following next steps:

Greenlights, book/memoir by actor Matthew McConaughey on his life story - inspiring account
The Alchemist, book by Paul Coelho
Keep an eye out for people & their career that inspire you - it helps to clarify what you like
A movie for inspiration : Amal (2007) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt8n0VydHys
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Samantha’s Answer

A career is something you work hard for. Its something that your passionate about. It is something that you can see yourself doing for a very long time.
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