AN UNORTHODOX APPROACH TO 
CAREER PLANNING
By Robert Ross

 

PART 2: FINDING OUR MISSION
part 2 of a 3 part series

This article is the second in a three part series. The first article was an overview of the concept of finding our mission in life. Part two will focus on the methods used to recognize our uniqueness and begin defining our mission in life. Part three will focus on the nuts and bolts of how finding our mission relates to Career Planning.

 

"All people have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. But all these stars are silent. You - you alone - will have the stars as no one else has them"
From: "The Little Prince" by: Antoine De Saint- Exupery

And so it is, when we talk of uncovering our mission in life. You - you alone - will have a mission as no one else.

In Part One of this series we discussed the concept of "mission". Do we all have missions . . . undiscovered, untapped, waiting to be revealed? And if we do, how do we go about discovering what our mission is?

In order for individuals to focus on the concept of mission, it's essential that they take care of some basic needs in their lives first. Abraham Maslow, one of the more widely quoted psychologists of this century determined that we have a hierarchy of needs. This hierarchy is often depicted as a pyramid with the first or basic needs at the bottom. Once each need is met, the individual is in a position to begin satisfying other needs on the hierarchy. For example, once survival needs of food and shelter are satisfied, then an individual can resolve issues around safety and security, then belongingness, and self esteem. And finally, only after we've taken care of those basic needs, are we in a position to contemplate our life's mission.

Like the triangle used in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the road to uncovering our mission can also be looked at as a triangle. Previously, we identified the two sides of our mission triangle as being: "meaningfulness", and "making a contribution". To connect with and fulfill our mission in life, our work must be meaningful to us and we must have a sense that we're making a contribution. The base of the triangle, something that ties it all together, is the utilization of our unique gifts; those attributes with which we were born and that only we possess.

WHO ARE YOU?

"And a man said, Speak to us of Self Knowledge. And he answered, saying: Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge"
                                                -
The Prophet by: Kahlil Bibran

We were all born with unique gifts, talents, natural skills, abilities, and ways of viewing the world. But for many, in the process of growing up, we shelved these gifts in order to "get a job", pay the bills, and in general live a socially acceptable life.

For some, that longing to hear the sound of our heart's knowledge continues . . . and in our quiet moments we ask: "Who am I?" "What is my purpose in life?" "Why am I here?"

Who am I? . . . questions philosophers have been grappling with since the beginning of recorded history. The ears thirsting for the heart's knowledge. There is an answer, not as elaborate as you may have thought. You have a name, you have beliefs, a history, a temperament, dreams and desires. You have talents, and skills you may not be unaware of. Your search for who you are is a process of uncovering and unearthing what you (at some level) may already know. And it's a process of organizing this information so that it's useful.

WHERE DO WE BEGIN?
Where do we begin? How do we go about clearly defining who we are in terms that we, and those around us understand? How do define ourselves in a way that will translate into work that is meaningful and makes a contribution? We begin by recognizing an inner need, a feeling of incompleteness, a desire to know more about ourselves, our temperament, our talents and natural skills. As the process unfolds, we read, we talk to career counselors, take aptitude tests, career evaluation tests, personality tests, and we listen closely to the answers. Some of the answers won't fit, won't feel right. But if we persist, eventually we'll begin hearing ourselves saying more and more "yea, that's it, that me!" The picture will become clearer and clearer. Who you are will emerge in a way that you understand and can verbalize. You'll be able to define your strengths, your temperament, your style of working, your skills, and abilities. You'll prioritize this information so that it's pertinent to you right now. And you'll find out that your dreams are worthy dreams. It may take some doing to arrange your life so that you're utilizing who you are to its highest and best use, but in the end it'll be worth it. In the end you will clearly understand the meaning of the word mission. Your mission.

METHODS
When selecting career counselors, you have essentially two choices. One may cost as much as $5000, the other is free or almost free. Most community colleges have career counselors available. They offer not only an opportunity to talk to someone about options available, career planning classes, job search classes, but also the opportunity to take a number of career evaluation tests.

There are a myriad of good tests available, with names like COPES, COPS, CAPS, Myers Briggs, STRONG, etc., all designed to confirm what you may already know about yourself, and in some cases to shed some light on this puzzle called you. Some of these tests reveal your personality type, (Myers Briggs), some compare your overall personality type with those that work in various career fields (STRONG) to see where you'll most likely find others who think like you. All these tests will be food for thought.

There is one book on the market that is considered the Bible of career planning books, What Color Is Your Parachute?, by Richard Nelson Bolles. This is considered by most in the field of career planning to be the best approach, hands down. Along with What Color Is Your Parachute?, Mr. Bolles has created a supplemental workbook titled How to Create a Picture of Your Ideal Job or Next Career. In this workbook, you'll have and opportunity to look back over your life, identifying those times when you felt successful and had achieved something. The achievement could have been as ordinary as assembling a model airplane or as extraordinary as climbing Mt Everest. In any event, it's your achievement, yours to be mined for skills. What natural skills were you using? What did you enjoy doing most? Eventually, after analyzing seven achievements, using the workbook, a pattern will unfold, and you'll begin to see how unique you are. You'll begin to see that you and you alone have skills that, given the opportunity, you prefer to use.

Additionally in your search there is always room to include sources outside the conventional path. You can fill in the blanks here, but I'll get you started: astrologers, psychics, tea leaf readers . . . , if it works for you, then by all means.

Let's jump ahead a bit here, and assume you've done your reading, taken tests, talked to a counselor, dusted off some of your old dreams, uncovered some new ones, and had glimpses of your mission. Now you're determined to do something meaningful, and make a contribution to the world. What's the next step?

Part three of this series will focus on the nuts and bolts of how finding our mission relates to work and career planning.
Copyright 1995 by Robert Ross, All rights reserved

Robert Ross can be reached by e-mail at: SanDiegoRoss@Yahoo.com   


Return To Archives