What Professional Identity?

What professional identity do you seek? Some kids know just what they ‘want to be when they grow up’, even at school. I had a friend who could identify that she wanted to be a vet when she was 13 years old. Three decades on and that woman is indeed a vet and still loving it. Most humans however take a little longer to form an opinion. My own professional development took a wide circular route that was a process of elimination. I had to try my hand at a hugely diverse series of roles, mostly saying ‘I don’t like that’, before embarking on the next!

Most people lie somewhere in between these two extremes. Some people have a a vague idea of their career path, but on attempting it find that it wasn’t what they hoped for after all. some people did enjoy what they did but find that over time, the culture has changed. It is really disappointing if you love what you do but the way that you can provide that is compromised by cuts or changes in organisational vision that are not of service to the end user. Sometimes as we have more experience of living, our own beliefs and values may shift and what was once a tolerable way of earning a living, becomes unsustainable and even impacts on our wellbeing. These are all triggers that will cause us to seek our next move. A job is not longer a job for life.

So how do we discover what professional identity comes next? At some point most of us have exhausted the ‘try it and see approach”. It become exhausting to keep being disappointed if we are not lucky enough to happen upon our ideal role. We then need to take a pause to reflect. This is not always comfortable and it is not always easy because we live in a culture that encourages us to work and consume without question. To make an informed decision about our professional identity we need to reflect on each past role and list the things we did like and to list the things we did not. Then we need to see roles, professions, and working environments, where we can really apply our skills and capabilities. These need to be places that are aligned with our values and the role needs to have a greater purpose. When you put all the things you did like from your past  together with the things you would like for your future, you create a holistic picture of where you want to be next.

When you take the time to reflect on your past likes and dislikes and your professional identity will reveal itself.

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