A career is a path that you choose or that chooses you. You could have a number of different reasons for it. You’re passionate about your work. Maybe being a lawyer, nurse, speaker, clerk, soldier, artist, or doctor is your calling. You may simply strive to be the best at what you do. Personally, I like to push the envelope. I’ve never been satisfied just doing things the way they’ve always been done. I want to find new ways – my way. I want to be innovative, to see how far I can go, and I thrive on adventure and risk. That’s why being an entrepreneur suits me better than working in a structured environment.
While you’re in the career ego-RHYTHM™, there’s often very little time for anything else. Relationships and even family can take second or third place. If you’re an entrepreneur, and building up your business or reinventing it, chances are that you work very long hours. If you’re in the corporate world, and you want to climb the career ladder, you have to demonstrate that you have the qualifications and the ability to be the candidate who deserves the next promotion.
This kind of career focus is impossible unless you dedicate yourself, your time and your efforts 100% to your work. You have to figure out how to position yourself appropriately for advancement, and you do what it takes to get to the top. Your thoughts are drawn to your projects even when you are not physically working on them. Ideas keep popping up. Even in your spare time, you find yourself reading or surfing the internet for more inspiration or information.
When you’re in this rhythm, you feel driven to move forward as quickly as possible. If you’re in school, you immerse yourself completely into your subjects, lessons or tasks, and you’re motivated to accomplish them as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. Everything you do is designed to get you closer to that promotion, the completion of a project, or your degree. Your friends might call you a workaholic or obsessed.
If some or all of this sounds familiar, chances are that you either are, have been, or soon will be in the career or education ego-RHYTHM™.
My career, my work, is a valuable part of my life. I can’t imagine ever standing still and not doing something. Some say I am driven, some say I am ambitious, but I say that I simply love what I do. Wherever I go, I see opportunity. Sometimes, people like me who love to work have a tendency to go from one project to the next. Career is like a drug; a fix that that’s exhilarating.
My work has helped me through some of the most difficult moments of my life. When the going got tough, I knew that I could distract myself by focusing on a project. My mind gets crystal clear when I wrap my head around a major problem. Business is my friend, and I understand it. This is why I believe that I am so comfortable within the career/education ego-RHYTHM™ and why I continually revisit it.
Perhaps it’s simply my nature to keep moving forward, and this drive continually places me squarely within my career ego-RHYTHM™. In the end, I know that the “why” doesn’t matter. I love what I do. I am drawn to my career. I’m driven to explore and excel. I put in thousands and thousands of hours, but I still love it. What can be more gratifying?
What’s the most gratifying thing that you do? Tell me – is it something that you’ve devoted your life to? Is your career your ego-RHYTHM™ right now? Thanks for sharing!
