Monday, July 25, 2016

Career Questions

Changes at work have left me wondering what I want in a career.  I often find myself desiring leadership positions but mostly for the purpose of building an enterprise.  It's less about people and more about the organization.  Not that I dislike people but it's not really about them.  Apparently that is not the attitude of a good leader. 

I also have a dream of running my own business.  Again, it's about building an organization up and more importantly an organization that I own. 

In either case I have no specifics - no specific leadership position such as CEO in mind, nor any specific business that I want to create.

It's hard to guide your career when you don't have an ultimate end in mind.  Next steps are unclear, leaving me in a reactive position rather than proactive.  It might help to ask why I want to build something, as much as what.  But I don't have a good answer to that question.  And, truth be told, if I had all of the money I could possibly need to live, I would not spend my time running a business, my own or otherwise. 

What would I do?  I would write, for one thing.  But I often find it difficult to motivate myself to write when I have the free time to do so.  Instead I find myself doing things like watch movies, play video games, or smoke cigars.  Leisure time means a great deal to me - perhaps too much.  It's hard to be a hedonist and have any kind of career. 

I also find it difficult to engage in any activity that doesn't have a predictable outcome.  At work I can show up and do my job, with the predictable outcome of a paycheck.  I can't do that with writing.  There's no guarantee that anyone will even read it, much less pay to do so.  I lose sight of the fact that I would do it just because, because I feel like I should sell my writing when it's done. 

Isn't that strange?  Why is that happening?

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