The God Question in Career Choice

What does God have to do with career choice? What we do know is that The God Question can be helpful. How is this so? For an executive or professional in midlife who needs to see the wood for the trees, struggling to figure out what he or she truly wants to be when he or she grows up, the concept of a god given guarantee for professional success helps appropriately quarantine the question of career risk.

This is 40
Consider an executive who is approaching 40, now with two teenage children and who has been for a number of years the sole bread winner in the family. All things being equal, this individual will make a career choice that is on the safe side. This makes sense as considerations of maintaining the quality of lifestyle for his family is understandably paramount. Yet, it is this very consideration that keeps executives and professionals in a narrow band of career choices. Often, it is more of a path of least resistance where opportunities or internal promotions are offered which, by then, the path forward is almost predetermined. But there comes a time when an executive starts to feel trapped. What has hitherto been an unquestioned path to success suddenly becomes a lot less clear, satisfying or meaningful. Sometimes, this results from changes in the work environment, or where the measures of performance, or someone's boss has changed. What was once predictable and clear cut at work has become murky.

Enter Mortality
At 40 +/- 3 years, people start to confront mortality, whereas death has until then been somewhat irrelevant to life and, therefore, career. When people we know and who have been meaningful to us actually die, this phenomenon starts to fundamentally shift perspectives and assumptions of what is and what is not important in life.

A Conversation with God
Let's assume there is a god and let's say god understands that you are struggling with what you want to be when you grow up. Let's say he is all knowing and comes down tonight. He wakes you up, tells you he understands your anxiety and feels he can help. God then says he has good news and bad news. He tells you that the good news is that over the next five years whatever you choose to do in your career, even if you haven't done it before and have no experience, if you told god now, he will make it happen for you. Furthermore, because you will be so successful in your career, all the material wealth will follow so that your family will be more than taken care of for the rest of their lives. You are incredulous and you ask god if he can make this happen even if you have no experience in whatever it is you tell him you want to do. He confirms he can do this this since he is all powerful.

By this time, you know the bad news is imminent. God obliges and tells you that there are only two problems. The first is that you die in five years - you drop dead and it is not negotiable AND you still have to go to work every day - again, not negotiable. The second piece of bad news that you have only two minutes to tell him what you want to do and become successful in your career. Final piece of bad news - you will die in five years in any event, so you may as well tell god what you want to do, as by this time you have really nothing left to lose.

So, what is your answer? What is your wish? What is your choice?

Getting to Point B (your Career True North)
In answering The God Question, executives and professionals now have a chance to decide what is meaningful in career. On a daily basis, it is too difficult to imagine any other reality and there are too many reasons why one cannot do for work, other than exactly what one is currently doing. When combined with the Yin and Yang of Career Choice, executives and professionals have two constructs that help them make better decisions in gaining insight into the content and purpose of the work they truly find meaningful and perpetually energizing. Of course, what is ideal is not always achievable. This is where a balance needs to be struck between getting to Point B, career aspiration, and the starting point, here and now. A Career Strategist can help co-design a career strategy to get to Point B but first, we need to define Point B, one’s Career True North that will not fundamentally change over time.

TERRY CHUAH
4 July 2014