How to pursue the Best Alternative Career Option?

What are you exceptionally good at?

When you are extremely skilled….you are more productive to the organisation you work…you earn more money as bonuses….you are respected among your peers, colleagues, community, family etc…..slowly you build your reputation….everything seem happening right.

Let me illustrate with a generic example. If you are a sales pro, if you achieve a size of sale from 3 customers when it normally it takes 7 customers that too in a shorter period of time, then everybody recognises the serious effort that has gone into the sales process. In otherwords You have rightfully mastered the trick of doing little and achieving more.

Same applies to professionals in manufacturing, procurement or any function. If you keep improving your craft and over time you would realise that its not about HARD work of sweating out several hours on the job…its more about smart work of doing less and gaining more.

Ideally everybody would like to be in a position where you do nothing and gain everything…Sorry…there was only one slot and it was taken by God. God actually does nothing….but millions pour every day. MLM sales pitches sometimes promise this…..

Jokes apart, If you introspect, something stops us from being anything like what I discussed above. We perpetually seem to be doing more and more and gaining less and less (Money, satisfaction etc). We were brainwashed to believe, appraisal after appraisal that you would be able to transform your weakness into strength if you work on that.

In my opinion thats futility. Consider this question: Will you strengthen your strength or strenghen your weakness? You wake up everyday with this conflict which runs through the entire day hardly giving you anytime to strengthen your strength. If you focus too much on working on your weakness, I think you will realise over time that its a losing battle. Be cautious: Focusing time to strengthen your weakness will come at the cost of building your strength and infact may weaken your strength

When you get this clear, your entire approach to your work and life changes. When you keep strengthening your strength, you will actually find more time at your disposal to acquire new skills, learn a new craft etc. That infact may open up some interesting alternate career options for you. Something which you might start doing it as a hobby in weekends or holidays and eventually develop as a alternative career option so compelling you will be tempted to give up your day job.

There may be sometimes, some weaknesses of yours, essentially playing out against you in your work performances. In such situations, you could consider outsourcing the weakness, which may be a strength of somebody. For example, if your weakness is numbers, hire a secretary or a freelancer who will handle your data and organise them in spreadsheets and presentations.

Any wild disagreements. Please share your thoughts.

I, as ever, really appreciate your time and attention. If you would like to get these posts via email, just enter the details in the sidebar on your right and you will never miss a post. If you like to share this post with friends you may use the links below.