A career resolution is exactly what it sounds like: a resolution for your career intended to help you grow into a better professional. At Work It DAILY, we believe that you need to work on your career every day (yes, you do, in fact, need to "work it daily"). So, everyone should make a career resolution or two along with those other ambitious personal resolutions. They can be little things like learning a new skill or growing your professional network, or bigger goals like landing a promotion or getting a new job.
But how do you know what kind of career resolutions to make?
You can begin by asking yourself, "Am I where I want to be in my career?" If your answer is "no," you need to take a closer look at your career goals.
Here are five more career questions you should be asking yourself this new year to figure out how to grow your career and become the professional you know you can be.
1. Am I Proud Of My Job Title?
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You could be a janitor or a neurosurgeon, it doesn't matter. If you aren't proud of what you do for a living, there's something missing: passion and purpose.
Career burnout is real, but sometimes it's deeper than that. Our passion at 25 won't necessarily be our passion at 40. And that's okay.
When we are passionate about what we do, we are proud because we are doing what we think is important, what we love doing. We feel a sense of purpose. We are adding value to and making a difference in this crazy world—in a small, but significant way.
Every job is important. No matter what your job title is, if you aren't proud of it, and don't feel like you can leverage your strengths as a professional in the position, you should absolutely change that. Identify that one problem you want to find a solution to and go after it. What are you waiting for?
Remember, the only bad job is the one you aren't passionate about, the one that isn't allowing you to leverage your professional strengths and reach your potential.
If you don't know what your professional strengths are or what kind of work you'd find purposeful and fulfilling, we recommend taking our free career quizzes.
Take the quizzes now to learn your unique combination of professional strengths and how they can help you get better career results so you can be proud of what you do.
2. Do I Feel Secure In My Career?
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This is a bit different from job security. Actually, job security doesn't exist. Every job is temporary. Think you can stay in the same job for decades and then retire? Think again. While that may have been commonplace for past generations, today's workforce and job market are completely different than what they were a decade or two ago.
So what does it mean to feel secure in our careers? When we believe as professionals that we can add value wherever we are.
You are a business-of-one. A company won't want to invest in you if they don't know the kinds of services you provide, the kind of value you could add to the organization, and the problems you could solve for them. Here are some examples of questions that will help you determine if you're secure in your career:
- Are you adding value at your current job?
- Are you honing your skills, expanding your network, and building your personal brand?
- Do you feel confident that if you lost your job, you'd be able to find a comparable one in the same field?
- Do you feel confident you'd be able to demonstrate to potential employers how you add value?
Since every job is temporary, it's extremely important to constantly work on our careers and ask ourselves these questions frequently so we always feel secure in our businesses-of-one.
3. Will I Be Able To Achieve Wealth?
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When most people think of "wealth," they think of dollar signs and anything that you can attach a monetary value to. Our jobs help us build wealth. We're not going to tell you that money isn't important. Of course it is! It allows you to live the life you want to live. In many ways, money equals freedom.
But the truth is, there are other forms of wealth that are more important that you can't attach any monetary value to.
Real wealth comes in the form of family, friends, hobbies, experiences, knowledge, and community. If you don't have these things, money will never fill that void.
So, is your career allowing you to build this type of wealth? The intangible kind? Or are your relationships suffering because of your job? Is your work-life balance nonexistent? Do you have any time to pursue hobbies, learn, or volunteer?
Your career should never inhibit you from achieving real wealth. The best job isn't the one that pays the most. It's the one that pays the bills and gives you enough time to live, too.
4. Do I Have Any Regrets?
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Just asking ourselves this question can be difficult because maybe we don't want to know the answer. Acknowledging that you regret something in your life is the first step to making a change. Guess what? There's still time to chase your dreams!
If you do have regrets, that doesn't mean you haven't been a successful professional. That also doesn't mean you haven't had a good career. You could be the most successful person, but if you never got up the courage to start that business, make that career change, or go back to school, you'll most likely think, "What if?" for the rest of your life.
You'll never know if you don't try. Don't be afraid of failure. Life is just one big experiment, and it's your job to learn from those experiments. That's how you discover what works and what doesn't. That's how you discover what's possible.
And even if you do "fail," that's an incredibly more valuable experience than waiting out the clock on a mediocre career. So, don't give up on your dreams just yet.
5. Can I Reach My Full Potential In This Role? In This Career?
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When we feel like we have more to contribute to society, that's a sign we haven't yet reached our full potential. Do you feel like you're wasting your potential at your current job? Do you think you'd reach your full potential in another career?
Really think about what you want your professional legacy to be. It's a lot harder to get up in the morning when you don't find fulfillment in your work. When it comes time for you to retire, are you going to look back on your career and feel like you could have accomplished much, much more with those 50 years?
Everyone has unique gifts, skills, and expertise. When we focus on developing ourselves as individuals, as businesses-of-one, it's a lot easier to share those things with the world. Give yourself a chance to reach your full potential. If you haven't taken our free quizzes yet, your results will help you do just that. You may be surprised by what you can accomplish.
Before you get back into the same routine at work this year, we hope you take a few minutes to ask yourself these career questions. Listen carefully to how you answer them. You may need to make a career resolution or two.
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Considered working as an architect? This interview will take you down the career path of an architect including the ups and downs you can expect in the position, what it takes to land he job, what you can expect to earn and more. This is a true career story as told to "DiversityJobs.com street smart" – a collection of true work-life stories told by members of minority groups.
I'm a project manager in an architectural firm, working directly from a quality control monitor to a software engineer, and everything in between.
I work under a licensed project architect. This position designates me as the first point of contact for clients and contractors during the contract document phase of a project and during the construction phase of a project. I over saw the working drawings and specifications. I have been in this industry for 12 years and a project manager for the last five years. The fact I am detail oriented and calm has been a benefit.
For the record, I am a white male. Once I got out of school, this is just a fact that has had no bearing on my job.
The majority of what I do is paperwork. Every decision and change in a construction project has to be documented and approved by the client or rejected. If needed, I submit changes to the municipal authority in charge of building inspection. Loose ends are not acceptable. Depending on the complexity of the project, you will have a team working under you.
There is a misconception architects spend their day in creative tasks such as drawing. That is at most 2% of any project. Most projects allow from six months to two years from start to finish depending on the complexity of the building type.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate my job satisfaction as a 5. The things that sold me on acquiring degrees in architecture are just not present in the large firms. I would fit better in a smaller office of 25 people or less.
My sweet spot in life would be to work for myself as a writer. The drive to work for oneself is very common in this industry.
I got started in high school with an internship in a small local firm. If I had an opportunity to do it over, I would get an undergraduate degree in history, or English, and get a master’s degree in architecture. In the disciplines of history and English, you learn how to write. That is incredibly important in putting construction documents together and for the volumes of reports you will write.
One lesson I learned the hard way is you have to keep up with technology. It is very hard to find a job if you cannot demonstrate a working knowledge of the drafting program that a firm uses. In the working world, you need to actually listen to the boss, the client, and the people you are working with. Students tend to think one answer, their own, fits everything.
The strangest thing that ever happened to me occurred in Grand Rapid Michigan. I was doing a field observation report for a client and was on the roof looking at the condition of the HVAC units. I turned around and there was a flock of geese at eye level flying directly at me. I ducked.
I get up and go to work each day because I promised I would. One of the better feelings I get is from delivering on a promise. One of the worst is failing to deliver.
This job is extremely stressful during the fall and winter seasons. Typically, projects have to be ready for bids by spring and construction starts during the summer months. Clients hit the roof if you miss a bid. If you miss the bid schedule, you affect the bank loans, the building opening, and potential revenues. Also, the construction drawings have to be complete for a bid to be effective.
The biggest challenge in architecture is time management. I usually want to quit around January or December as the pressure to complete construction drawings mount. The job can be extremely stressful during up swings in construction and lay-offs are very common during the down swings in construction. There is no job security unless you own the firm. You have to work at maintaining a healthy work-life balance. It is not easy.
I started out around $21,000 and worked my way up to $48,000. If you add the bonus, it came out to $54,000. The upper salary for a licensed employee is in the $80,000 range depending on the firm’s location. Keep in mind that you are responsible for your own license fees, continuing education, AIA dues, and any other training you need. You will be expected to use your own car to visit construction sites; but, unless the firm is incredibly cheap you will reimbursed for the mileage. The wages are low compared to other professionals such as engineers, who will be working for you. There is a tendency for young architects to job hop in order to get a raise in salary.
Vacation time is pretty much the standard two weeks that increases with your tenure. It worked for me.
Architecture is regulated by the state you live in. Most states require that you at least complete the Intern Development Program of NCARB and you have an accredited professional degree and you pass the state licensing exam.
If I had a friend who was interested in this line of work, I would wish him well and have him read this article.
If I could write my own ticket for a five year plan, I would be free-lance writer making regular contributions to Architectural Record.
JustJobs.com is a job search engine that finds job listings from company career pages, other job boards, newspapers and associations. With one search, they help you find the job with your name on it.Photo credit: Shutterstock
