|
Quick Career Advice Reply 11. Pay Attention to Your Interests Dear Ann: I have a good job, but it’s not very interesting to me. My passion is mountain climbing, but I don’t think I can earn a living for my family in that field. Any thoughts? You have a lot of company in this problem. Most people don’t think of their interests and their work in the same category, but maybe they’re not paying close enough attention to all the possibilities. Many times our attention may be drawn to something at work, but we tune it out to focus on the task at hand. Instead, if we followed our “nose” in the direction of what caught our interest, we might find ourselves really enjoying what we do.* For example, when Jim was in college, he worked in a large, all night drugstore. He got interested in the kinds of customers who came in, what they bought, and how they shopped. He found the buying habits of some customers were so regular that he could predict fairly accurately what ended up in their shopping bags. He got an idea about how to arrange the merchandise to take advantage of this observation and wrote a report to management. You can guess the result: the start of a career in marketing. By becoming more aware of the wide variety of things which draw our attention, we can add more spark to our lives, in and out of work. Pursuing interests outside of work also have a positive effect on our performance on the job. Mark, an executive on the verge of burnout from working 60-hour weeks, took advantage of a company policy that allowed him to work four days a week, consciously determining to spend that free day on an area that fascinated him. The first year, he spent time on music. The next year, he took up woodworking. He found that he was much more productive at work as a result of replenishing his energy supplies from his store of interests. Here is an exercise that will help you start adding more “juice” to your life: start an Interest File. Begin with becoming aware of what grabs your focus over the course of several weeks. Whenever a picture in a magazine or story in a newspaper draws your attention, cut it out or otherwise make notes about it. Find out what engages your interest throughout the day. Add these notes or reminders to a conveniently located box or file. Include random thoughts about what fascinates you. Try to figure out what caused your interest level to rise. After a few weeks, pull out everything you have been collecting. See if the items fall into various groupings. Some items may fit in more than one grouping. Write up these groupings, find a name for these categories, and prioritize them in order of their level of interest to you. Now you have the information you need to start putting your interests “to work” for you. Look for opportunities in or out of work where they may occur or you could pursue them. You will be adding energy and zest to you life each time you do. |
