What's in Your Career?

Editors note: A post from July 2015

I love origins of words. The word Career comes from the Latin carrus, which means "wheeled Vehicle". A colleague from ACE (The Association of Career Educators) once mentioned that careers, meant carts, and we push them around for the rest of our lives.

One of the main philosophies that run through our organization is that life and careers are almost synonymous and we can not really separate the two. I personally believe it's impossible. I believe that your work has a huge impact on your life decisions and vice versa.

I remember hearing advice from an old manager. He told our group that the reason he was "soooo good" was because he was great at separating his life from his work. He followed that up by saying, when he had problems at home it didn't affect his performance and he "knew" how to turn it off as soon as he got to work.

I suspect he never took a psychology course in his life, because he first made the assumption that he was good, then made the assumption that he knew what correlated with how good he was. Unfortunately, he was quite wrong about both, because he was fired few months later.

Why is it such common practice to assume that it's better to compartmentalize your life and separate work from it?

I argue that your career is very much like a cart, but what goes into the cart is all the experiences you have both during and after hours. And just like a regular cart, it's easier to maneuver when you are carrying less weight.

I like the analogy of the "wheeled vehicle" because it suggest that you can move from one place to another. It represents the organic nature of a career and reminds you that you are never stuck in one place. You can always choose where to move, how fast or slow, by determining what you put into it. Like most things in life, what you put into it is what you get out of it.

So what's in your Career? Are there some things that you can take out that would help you move? Also, what are some things that you can put in that would help you with your journey later on?

Take inventory, make sure you have what you need for the future and start throwing out the things you don't need. I'm sure it will help you get moving.