In this second question in his Career Changers’ Checklist, Warren Wyrostek helps you probe what you are passionate about and what pleases you as he asks the question: What do you like to do? It is critical to come to terms with what you want to do AND what you like to do. Be ready for one of those aha! moments when considering this important diagnostic question as you move toward your ideal IT career choice.
Welcome to the second question in the Career Changer's Checklist series. So far we have discussed why this series is being written in Genesis, and the first of 12–13 diagnostic questions in What Do You Want to Do? (Goals!)
To briefly recap (in case you have not read one or both of the first two articles), the purpose of this series of articles is to help you through a series of diagnostic questions that identify career options you might not have thought of and hopefully move you in a direction that will open career doors for you.
Because it is presented through an IT outlet, the main audience and focus for this series are those folks interested in IT careers. But these articles are just as relevant to all the current market sectors.
Next we looked at the first question (what do you want to do?) and took a hard look at life and job goals—and how defining those goals might help you determine what you want to do.
In this article, I want to go a step further and ask the following:
* What do you like to do?
* What gives you pleasure?
* What are you passionate about?
What Do You Like to Do?
There can definitely be a difference between wanting to do XYZ and liking to do XYZ. That might seem odd or contradictory, but think about it. You might want to build a deck for your home, but do you necessarily like to build decks out in the elements? Or is building decks just something you want to do?
And to take the question a bit farther, does doing XYZ give you pleasure and are you passionate about it?
When students have come to me over the years looking for career advice, I always tell them the same thing, which has not changed in 30 years: Find something you love to do that will also allow you to make the income you need to live the life you want. This advice is based on the following concepts:
* You can be happy and financially struggling
* You can be miserable and financially struggling
* You can be miserable and financially comfortable
* You can be happy and financially comfortable
Which option would you choose? Obviously you want to be happy and financially comfortable. So you need to choose a career option that you want, but also one that gives you pleasure and the necessary financial resources. If you don't love your career choice, no matter if you want to do it, you might see it through for awhile, but odds are you will drop it along the way. You have to love what you're doing.
That being said, what do you like to do generically, for recreation, for a career? Is there really a difference? NO!!!! You have to laundry list what you like to do. You may be surprised what you write down.
Just take a look at how many folks have established billion-dollar enterprises because of something they simply liked to do. Not just wanted to do, but loved to do. Does the name Bill Gates ring any bells? What about Michael Dell? Be like Julie Andrews, who in the Sound of Music sang the song My Favorite Things. What are your favorite things? Write them down.
Wanting to do something often comes after you have identified what you like to do. In the first diagnostic question in this series, you identified what you want to do. This might seem that I am presenting these two questions out of order. What you like to do comes second in this series because this is the process that many in the current market use.
We don't first identify what we like; instead we identify what we want. This can be both good and bad. So to keep with the current market concepts, I asked you to first identify what you want and now to identify what you like.
But as you consider what you like to do, you have to also ask yourself why you like it.
Why Do You Like It?
The question WHY is critical to making the right career choice. You have to know why you like to do something. I like to do XYZ because… Then you have to seriously consider your motivation? If you are not motivated or if you have the wrong motivation, the results can be awful. Also consider the feedback or payback that you will receive.
The question WHY became crystal clear to me several years ago when I posed the following question to a class of high school students:
* Do you prefer working with other students/people or with machines/computers and why?
I was absolutely floored by the responses. An inordinately high percentage of the students preferred to work with machines/computers as opposed to working with other students/people. In other words they liked computer work over people-to-people work. The reasons they gave (the WHY) were amazing and included the following:
* There is an impersonal relationship
* They could be a loner and yet be productive
* It was a nonthreatening relationship
* It was a nonjudgmental relationship
* The student was in control when working with a computer
* The student had a good deal of independence and freedom when working with a computer
A very low percentage of these same students liked (preferred) to work with other students and people. The reasons included the following:
* They liked teamwork
* They liked collaboration
* They liked groups
* They didn't like to work alone
So knowing what you like to do is important, but so is why you like to do it. And because we are talking about why you might like a career in IT, think of why you would want to go into IT. Is it one of the reasons my students gave? Or do you have a different reason?
Many go looking for a job in IT for all the wrong reasons. If you decide to pursue a career in IT, please go into it because you have found something you like to do.
Do not go into IT for the following reasons:
* Simply because you want a job in IT
* Simply because of what you have heard about IT
* Simply because of the money
If you do, it will be just a job. Where is the pleasure in that? If you have identified something you like to do in IT, by all means go for it!
There are many options in IT and other sectors. For example there are options
* For working alone
* For working in teams
* For collaboration
* For making a lot of money
* For creating something unique
* For contributing to a large-scale environment
Every sector has these options—not just IT. So if you are interested in another sector, that's great.
List why you like to do XYZ. For example if you are interested in medicine, why do you like to work with patients? Or if you don't like to work with patients, maybe you like to do medical research. Why? Think about it and write it down.
So you not only have to identify what you like to do, but why you like to do it.
When Do You Like to Do Something?
One other question related to why you like to do something is this: When do you like to do XYZ? Do you like to do XYZ only at a given time of the year or only for a given audience? Is what you like to do simply a flavor of the month or does it have some real promise for long-term satisfaction? To return to an earlier example, you can like to build decks in the early spring, but do you like to build them in the dead of winter in the upper Midwest?
As an IT instructor, I know there are times of the year when there are no classes to teach. For example from the second week of December until the third week of January, it is virtually impossible to get a class to teach in the United States. Another time that is almost always dead for classes is around the fiscal year turnover (usually from mid-June to early August). Money becomes tight and no one goes to class.
So if I love to teach IT classes, which I do, and I am planning a career, I need to take into consideration that there will be times, when I will be working and down times when I will not. When you like to do something is often controlled by external forces, but if you are aware of them, they can be managed.
So you have to identify what you like to do, why you like to do it, and when you like to do it. WOW!
Now here are some examples from my own career path.
Examples
To help you make your list, allow me to offer some examples of what I like to do:
* I love to drive because I am not restricted by the airlines. I am free on the road. When I was growing up I dreamed of being a truck driver, which made my parents bless themselves. But I grew out of that for a profession—but not as something I love to do.
* I love to write and compose. I love to write articles, books, and music. They are difficult tasks for me, but I love the process. I love what they bring to others. They are a mode of communication for me.
* I love to do public speaking and performing. The opportunity to communicate with a group of people and have those aha! moments is a real kick for me In the same way, I love to tell stories.
* I love to take care of people (do patient care). I get a real thrill making things better for someone else.
* Early in my career, I found I liked organizing spaces. One of my early jobs was at a major medical college in NYC, and one of my jobs was organizing the spaces to house all the volatile chemicals according to city, state, and federal standards. I really liked making sense out of nonsense.
* In IT, I love working on directories and directory services, as well as troubleshooting them. Why? Because when a directory works, the users are happy, and the admins are happy.
* In life in general, I like to have balance between working with others and working independently. I can't have one without the other. I used to think I could, but I have recently learned that I can't. I can't stand to work alone 100 percent of the time, nor can I stand to work in a nonstop, don't-think environment in which everyone talks and no one listens.
So how could I use what I like to do to make a living, to establish a career? To land a job in IT? What does this list tell me about career options?
For everyone the responses will be different. For me, up to this point in my life what I like to do has allowed me to work as an independent IT instructor and consultant, as well as a writer and editor. I can work with others, yet work independently. I can have those aha! moments and still make a living.
What Don't You Like to Do?
Just as important as identifying what you like to do is identifying what you don't like to do. How many folks do you know who are working in jobs that they hate? I know a bunch. Some who are in IT jobs with good employers. But they are doing something they hate to do.
So remember that you want to be happy, doing what you like while making a good living. You need to list what you don't like to do as well as what you like to do to get a complete picture and potentially not fall into a pothole.
Here are some examples from my career search of what I don't like to do:
* I don't like to engage in office politics. It is too egocentric and a waste of time.
* I don't like to compete in the workplace for attention because it distracts what I perceive that I am there for. I am not looking to earn points by making nice with a boss.
* I do not like programming or learning foreign languages from a book. I don't know why, I just don't
* I don't like to talk down to others or in a condescending tone or be talked down to or spoken to in a condescending tone. This by itself in many employment environments makes me a lousy boss.
* I can't take a job where there is an inordinate amount of travel by plane or I will be miserable. I hate to fly.
Now it is your turn. Make a laundry list of what you don't like to do. And then compare what you like to do with what you don't like to do.
Any hints? Don't ignore this process. You will learn a lot by writing it down.
Conclusion
You should now be able to come up with a short list of what you like to do. You should also be able to point to why you like to do these tasks/jobs and when you like to do them. Also you should be able to point to what you DON'T like to do.
What do you like to do? This is the second question. Now when you look at your responses to the first question and this second question, what are your career directions? Do you see something developing that you did not see before?
Remember that whatever you say now is simply a more refined hypothesis as we diagnose your career options in the coming weeks. My list is also simply a hypothesis. There are more questions that will direct you to the proper treatment.
I hope many of you will continue to read along and share your thoughts and ideas with me through email at wyrostekw@msn.com and also through the comments sections provided by InformIT at the end of each article. I will gladly respond.
Come back next time and let's look at the third question: What can you do? (Restrictions! What's stopping you?)
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