A few months ago I met Duane Carey. He asked where I see myself in five years, and I described a number of possible Future Eva’s. He understood. He said, “nobody knows what they want to be when they grow up.”
I know plenty of professionals who say that semi-jokingly, and are unsure how much longer they will stay in their current jobs, or who work in a different field than their previous one. But perhaps it’s more accurate that everyone has multiple ideas of what they want to be. People are interested in more than one thing. We have many (sometimes competing) goals, and our choices and extenuating circumstances determine what we end up doing.
But having one million ideas makes it hard to get things done. Here you are, energetic, tenacious, brimming with ideas. How do you choose one focus when you want to DO THEM ALL? When they’re all full of potential? How do you divide your time between your goals?
A lot of career advice is to specialize: become an expert in something and create your career around it. This makes sense, but there are so many things to choose from! Sometimes the options lead to paralysis.
I have ideas all the time. Do I focus on financial education? If so, where do I start? How do I package what I offer? Do I focus on my organizing business? Do I focus on designing and building WordPress sites? Something else? I don’t know yet, and sometimes the lack of focus feels scattered. How to decide what to do everyday? How to set goals if they all compete with each other for time and attention?
Part of the challenge is that it takes patience to make this kind of decision. Sometimes you need to mull over the options until the answer becomes obvious. Maybe you need to try a bunch of things to eliminate some. I’m not suggesting avoidance, but patience and a methodical way of trying out the options.
The Internet, as always, has ideas:
How Successful People Achieve Goals: Write down your goals. Be flexible with them – except that they will change. Schedule your goals daily. Be open about them for motivation and encouragement. Dig Deep: how do your goals relate to your values? What’s the why? Use “If, then” statements to keep yourself accountable to your goals.
Find Your Purpose: Look around you: what could you make better? Probably lots of things, so focus on one or two of your values. Then, take small, strategic steps.
Be More Decisive: If your answer isn’t a clear yes, say no. Take your time – are you rushing a decision out of a sense of urgency? Ask who you’re trying to please. Don’t rehash past decisions ad nauseum.
My professional muse Jen Dziura made a great suggestion in the webinar Better Brain, Better Life: choose a goal for every quarter or month. I’ve written about themes for the year, but this is different. If you assign an idea or goal to each month, you automatically know what to do with your free time and what to include in your agenda each day. It ensures that you give each idea/goal attention, and may help you decide which ones aren’t worth your time. I want to try this!
I’m focus-finding – I’m testing the waters and don’t know what will happen yet. How about you? Did you decide how to steer your career? Do you feel torn between ideas and goals?
(photo taken by Eva Jannotta)
