Is it your job or your career?
A person who knows how may always have a job,
But the person who knows why will always be the boss.
Brian Tracy

In the last article, I stand on the note that the journey towards becoming a somebody in life must begin with knowing who you are and what you actually love to do. One interesting aspect of this article are the responses that I received from readers. Two of such responses goes thus:
How can one identify oneself?
If you do not do or learn different things, how do you know where you fit in?
In this article, I will address these questions in a rhetorical manner.
Who are you? Yes! Can you take a brief pause and describe yourself in a simple expression? Just give it a try, please. It may be very easy for you to attach one title, quality, or profession to your name if you are actually occupied with something. Be that as it may, the bigger question is how do you become what you attach to your name? You will do yourself a great favour by having a deep reflection on this before you give an answer. Do you find yourself in that position due to your passion or due to a mention? The actual fact remains that life is so much complicated for many of us that we just have to settle for one thing just to ensure survival. Regardless of this, you should know that life is not a racetrack, it is a battlefield where people struggle to survive. I guess you will agree with me that regardless of the fact that everyone wishes to survive, only the very strong, smart and, maybe, lucky ones will actually survive. Such is the case of struggling to have a career. You need to be strong, committed, dedicated, and most importantly, have a picture of your actual desire and set your goals around it. The truth remains that virtually everyone has the desire to be successful but only a few has a picture of how they want to be successful.

Hey reader, I have a question for you. Are you a successful man? If yes, are you fulfilled with your success? I guess your answer can only be yes if you are around the later days of your life as a successful businessperson or working class citizen. If you are a young reader, I expect your answer to be a ‘no’ mainly because you can only be fulfilled with your success if and only if you have achieved your career goals. This is because your career goals serve as the indicator to measuring your fulfillment. To be a somebody in life, you should not be fulfilled until you have fully filled the blank spaces in your career goals. Hmm, what if you have no career? What if you have no goal? Just answer the question ‘do you have a career?’ do you have your life set goals? Is your job your career? NO NO NO. Please get this straight now: your job is not your career until you care so much about it that you only want to keep doing it for the rest of your life. Now tell me, do you really care about your job? Maybe, you don’t really care about the job; maybe you are only scared about what will become of you if you lose the job. Is that the case? I need you to reflect on this… Please, don’t read further unless you have properly reflected on this.

WHO AM I?
My dear reader, knowing who you are will go a long way in making you visualize your career. Candidly, the journey towards knowing oneself is not an easy one. However, I think you should be able to soften this complex task through your reflection on the three phases of life that many individuals battle with. Let me quickly review these.
The first phase is the confusing phase. Most young individuals battle with this phase. They want to try different things, explore different opportunities that life throw at them, test their strength on different things while ascertaining their weaknesses on some others.
The second phase is the survival phase. At this phase, many other individuals are only thinking of maintaining their job. They see their job as a key to their survival. They do not want to lose it because they feel their life depends on it.
The third stage is the maintenance phase. This is the stage where many individuals do no longer work. At this stage, they only want to maintain the little they have been able to own when they were working.

Can you now see which phase you are battling with? Let me tell you one secret that makes many people successful. Many successful people out there are successful because they are able to see a clear picture of themselves at a very young age. While they are young, they always picture themselves in where they want to be in the next near years to come. As such, they are able to set goals for themselves on how to get there. At some points in their life, they may also do something that is different from what they see for themselves. However, whenever they are doing it, their focus is set on achieving their goals. Many people have changed their job not because they were not being well-paid but because they felt it was time to choose a career that aligns with their interest and passion. It should not be strange to you that some persons have called it quit on their job to start a business of their own. Funnily enough, some other persons only did one job in their life and they are very fulfilled with it. Moreover, some persons have never worked for anyone.

Many young lads are actually not confused about their career interest, they are only concerned about life’s struggles. Many of you have turned your back on your passion because you feel you may not get there, you feel you don’t have what it takes, or you feel your passion does not worth the struggle. In this modern society, due to the essential economic struggle that we face, we are often confused about two words: employment and entrepreneurship. The truth of the matter is we all are not designed to work for somebody and we all are not designed to own a business. How then will you know where you belong? Pardon me, you’ll get the answer in the next article to be released next Monday.
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