NEW BLOG: Turning What You Love into What You Do

Editor’s Note:

“What do you do for a living?”
The question is a common and easy conversation starter. But if you’re over 50, the answer isn’t always clear. Maybe you’re between jobs, or you’ve been downsized. Maybe you’re tired of your career. If retirement is approaching, perhaps you realize that you don’t retire from a job but to something else. Forget second acts. At our age, it’s more likely a fifth or sixth act that’s coming.

Meet our newest blogger, Patrick J. O’Connor, who will explore career options for older adults. No matter what you do — or did — we know you’ll find his blog provocative and inspiring.

-Marie Elium

Turning What You Love into What You Do
By Patrick O’Connor

Like many other aspects of life these days, career planning has changed. Many people still think of career planning in a linear paradigm; a vertical pathway started by going to college. This was once quite common. And the linear approach is still happening in select careers/professions. However, the more common path to a career is a wavy, winding road filled with a wide assortment of career experiences.

The career path looks more like a career continuum filled with job changes, re-dos, backtracking, retooling, additional education, skill development and reinventing yourself. This applies if you are just starting a career or at some point along this continuum. For many of us, career planning is almost a constant experimental adjustment. 

The result of these changes in career planning is, we need a new conversation about how we plan for career and life. We need to be thinking of career planning from a new perspective if people are going to be able to navigate in a constantly changing world. This applies to our over-50 readers who may be considering a career change. They are in an excellent position to encourage younger friends and family members who may starting out on the career continuum. They can be an effective source to change the conversation about career/life planning.

The end goal of this conversation is to be happy. Adults spend most of their lives engaged in three activities: sleeping, leisure and work. Many of us spend more time at work than in either of the other two activities. And we will do it for a very long time. With people living longer, many young people today can expect an adult work life of 50-60 years! And they can expect to change jobs about 10 times. If you are farther along the career continuum, you may still be planning to work for 10, 15 or even 20 years. So long to one job for life and the “30 and out” world. 

This blog is based on the Road Less Traveled (RLT) series appearing in AroundKent magazine. I wrote the RLT, focusing on 16 successful people from a wide assortment of careers. The RLT describes the winding paths these interesting people took to get to the successful places they are in work and life. 

They all turned what they love into what they do. Together, the experiences of this group form a playbook for navigating life and the career continuum. This playbook applies to almost anyone at any point in their lives; to those entering the workforce full-time for the first time and those changing or returning to a career. 

There are eight common career themes and eight personal qualities that emerged from the Roads of the 16 subjects. One of these themes or qualities, with examples from the Roads, will be discussed in each monthly segment of this blog, including links to the original Road so you can read further. Each blog will build upon the previous one, providing readers with practical application of concepts discussed earlier.

The goal is to encourage a new conversation about thinking and planning for careers that leads to “turning what you love into what you do.”

Follow this link to a video that helps to further explain The Road Less Traveled.

Photo courtesy pexels.com