MaXIMIze - Career - Why Do You Want to Leave Your Current Position?

A friend of my dear friend discussed this in his blog a while back, and it seemed appropriate to address this month here, since we are focused on careers.

While I don't know that it is an allowable question in an interview in the public sector, it is something to consider when you are looking for that next position, particularly to ensure you are looking to move for the right reasons and not *just* for higher pay, bigger glory, or you really can't stand your current co-workers. These are all extrinsic reasons for doing something. To be successful in the long run, we need to stay focused on the intrinsic reasons.

When seeking to answer the question of why you are looking to leave your current position - particularly to answer it for yourself - consider the following:

How your current position does or does not fit in with your personal value system.

Whether or not your current position is aligned with your passion - the underlying drive that lights your fire and illuminates your path.

If perhaps - as I have in my current position - you've reached the summit of what you can truly accomplish in that position and are looking for your next mountain.

These are all intrinsic reasons for looking to move on.

Another one is seeing a need to be filled and believing you can fill it. That's how I ended up being a program and project manager for four years working a program I still believe in, even though I support a completely different project these days.

So, if you are looking to move to another position - or just, really, to leave the one you're currently in - I challenge you to consider, REALLY consider, why so you can answer the question "Why do you want to leave your current position?" - at least for yourself.

If you need coaching on how to take the Five Whys process and use it to really get at the heart of career change or change in other areas of your life, please contact me.

Until next time, Namaste!

MaXIMIze - Career - Passion or Glory?

For whatever reason the song Eye of the Tiger by the band Survivor was stuck in my head earlier this week. There is a line that goes, "…you trade your passion for glory…"

This clicked with discussions a dear friend has been having with his management over the last year or so - they are focused on the glory of what his finishing a certain project could/should/will mean. They are missing the fact that he is looking for the passion lacking in his current situation, and that their search for glory is draining him, causing burn out and frustration, and could lead ultimately to disengagement. And they have seen it before with other employees on other projects, yet they seem to not learn the lessons of the past.

Glory is external and fleeting; passion is internal and lasting.

Glory is for the benefit of others.

Passion is for the benefit of you.

Passion fuels you; glory drains you, for it is using your talents to fuel others, not yourself.

So, are you living a life of passion, or are you fading from glory?

Until next time, Namaste!

MaXIMIze - Career - Find Your Next Mountain

Wow! I look over my posts from last year on the topic of careers and I don't know how I can top those!

Sort of fits the theme of this post - Find Your Next Mountain.

I think we've all been there (and if you haven't, you will)…that time and space where you feel you've hit the pinnacle of the job you're currently in. For me, that was in the months following my last performance appraisal, when I got the highest rating we can get in our appraisal system - a 1 - out of a scale of 5, with 3 being fully successful. When we did our mid-year reviews a month or so ago, I realized that I had hit a pinnacle and the saying followed soon after that - Find Your Next Mountain.

I spoke with a co-worker in the the elevator this morning - he hasn't got to the summit of his mountain yet. How could I tell? Because his job hasn't settled into a flow yet. Yes, when you hit that Zen flow in your current position, where everything just comes together and feels easy or right, it's time to find your next mountain.

At least, that is one time - one good time - to find your next mountain.

A not-so-good time is when you are going through the opposite - trying to support something you feel you truly cannot support anymore. When the other players are just too frustrating, and management may or may not be waking up to this not being a good thing, and/or it just compromises your value system to the breaking point - and, burn out is setting in.

This is a time to do two things - take a serious sabbatical and find your next mountain.

It's easier to find your next mountain when your job has become flow.

It is much harder when you feel like you are continually fighting the current and get to a point where you wonder if it's anything really worth fighting for anymore.

When you are exhausted from fighting the current in this way, you really need to find a way to pull back and reconnect with what makes you feel alive again. You need to find your passion, your purpose in life again.

Our careers take so much of our lives and are our physical - monetarily - support for our lives, and we need to be fulfilled in them, otherwise we live a half-life instead of a full one.

The best job is the one that doesn't feel like work. It feels like purpose. It feels like focus. It feels like, well, passion. And it gives us bliss.

If our jobs, our careers aren't doing that, it's time to find a new one.

Question to ponder for the week - if you could do any job in the world, what would you do and why?

Until next time, Namaste!