A couple of years ago a few of my colleagues and I were facilitating a job search / career planning workshop with several recent college grads. During the workshop we took great pains to not talk about our personal career journey reasoning that a bunch of young adults would have no interest in our stories. At the end of the workshop we asked for feedback and, to a person,every participant said that they would have found great value in hearing our stories – successes, failures, insights, things we would do differently etc. I was thinking about this the other day and since this blog is about careers, work and leadership, I decided that sharing the my career journey might be of interest.
My journey started well before college and has roots going back to early childhood. I assume yours does too. One of my favorite questions to ask during career coaching is, ‘When you were young, what did you want to do when you grew up? Adults love to ask kids this question because it’s fun. As an adult, reflecting on how you answered this question can give you insights into your hard-wired interests and passions.
We would discuss this at our college grad workshop and it would produce some interesting reflections. For example, people who wanted to be a doctor or nurse would often have a strong inclination to helping others. People who wanted to be an astronaut tended to be creative and adventurous. People who wanted to be an athlete liked competition or loved teamwork and collaboration
So, when you were young, what did you want to do when you grew up?
More on this question and how it connects to my personal career journey next time.
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