Mind Your Own Career: Your Guide to Right Working for Right Living

By John R Dempsey

You own your career. Who's managing it? The smart money is on "do it yourself" career management. If you trade your time for money, you must take responsibility for planning and managing your own career. You must keep your freedom and independence, while balancing short and long term priorities. You need to use a process and a strategy that gives you the power to choose your own value, rewards and recognition while you continue to grow and thrive in your chosen profession.

You make choices about the work you do – choices rooted in who you are, what you need and what you want. Your choices about your work may be deliberate, may be not, and may be a bit of both. You do the work you’ve chosen and that work becomes your career. You may have intended for your career to be what it is, or your career may seem to be something that just happened. Either way, your career becomes a part of who you are, what you need and what you want – your career then affects the ongoing choices you make about the work you do. So, minding your own career is about who you are, what you need and what you want. Minding your own career is making clear choices about the work you do, the career your work becomes, and the effect your career has on who you are.

Is your career worthy of you?

Mind Your Own Career: Your Guide to Right Working for Right Living can help you to explore these questions, and to understand, and even to change, the answers you find. The guide lays a foundation with a basic philosophy and some practical tips for changing your answers to these questions, so your answers become more suitable for who you are, what you need and what you want – in your work, as well as in your larger life.

The practical tips which you can find throughout the Mind Your Own Career guide include:

- Self-assessments to help you develop a clear snapshot of your current career situation and to monitor changes on a regular basis.

- Checklists to help you explore and develop your awareness and your knowledge in relevant areas.

- Personal reflections to challenge your perception and interpretation of your inner and outer experiences of work and money.

- Practices to help your explore and develop your capability and your capacity in relevant areas.

- Guidelines to help you develop your own personal self-assessments, checklists and practices.

- Recommended reading so you can further explore specific aspects of the philosophy and practice that are most relevant and important for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John R Dempsey
• Release date: Feb 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9780987982803

John R Dempsey

Since 1979, John R Dempsey has been a professional consultant in public and private sector organizations in the US and Canada, developing and delivering effective educational and experiential workshops, as well as consulting and coaching with groups and individuals.John is a certified Coach U graduate, a member of the Coachville Graduate School of Coaching, and an independent Good Thinking! facilitator. He is a contributing author to the book 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life: Volume 2.John also offers e-books and e-courses, and is available for personal consulting and coaching as well as telephone, internet and live seminars.

Book preview

Mind Your Own Career: Your Guide to Right Working for Right Living

Copyright – 2005 - 2012 – John R Dempsey

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Table of Contents

Introduction

About Right Working and Right Living

Your Guide to Right Working and Right Living

Minding Your Own Career

Keeping work and money in perspective

Playing DICE to balance working and living

Working on The Inside

Working the possibilities

Making your work meaningful for you

Choosing Your Way

Maintaining control of your work

Controlling the direction and pace of your career

Managing the impact of your choices at work

Living With Your Work

Working full of grace

Improving and contributing

Making It Work for You

Being true to yourself at work

Doing the right thing at the right time

Realizing true rewards

Recommended Reading

Introduction

I have always been intrigued by the way choice works in our lives. Why do we so often believe we have made a particular choice when our circumstances clearly indicate that another, and sometimes very different choice, holds sway?

This fascination has led me to develop several models of how choosing may work and helped me to understand how some of our choices seem almost to make themselves while others – no matter how insistently we cling to them – seem to lead nowhere.

This book explores how those models apply to your work and to your career.

You make choices about the work you do – choices rooted in who you are, what you need and what you want. Your choices about your work may be deliberate, may be not, and may be a bit of both.

You do the work you’ve chosen and that work becomes your career. You may have intended for your career to be what it is, or your career may seem to be something that just happened. Either way, your career becomes a part of who you are, what you need and what you want – your career then affects the ongoing choices you make about the work you do.

So, minding your own career is about who you are, what you need and what you want. Minding your own career is making clear choices about the work you do, the career your work becomes, and the effect your career has on who you are.

When you mind your own career, you can easily answer questions like these, and more than that, you are pleased with the answers:

How well does your work reflect who you truly are – can you always be yourself at work?

How well does your work support you in getting your personal needs met, either directly or by giving you the resources, e.g. the time, money, networks, etc., to get your needs met outside of work?

How well does your work support you in getting you what you want out of life, either directly or by giving you the resources to get what you want outside of work?

Is your work really worth the time, energy and attention that you give it?

How often do you wish that you could work less, or that you could earn more money, or both?

How effectively do you work? Does your work give you anything that is relevant and important for you, e.g. an appropriate and enduring sense of achievement or recognition?

Does your work enable you to spot, and to respond effectively to, your opportunities, whether for your work or for your larger life? Can you benefit in any scenario?

How readily can you find enjoyment and meaning in your work?

How easily and effectively can you maintain control of your work circumstances?

Do you have full and effective control of the direction and pace of your own career growth?

Can you make confident, timely and appropriate choices for your work and for your life in general?

How does the work you do – and your resulting career – affect and reflect who you are, to yourself and to others?

How well does your work support you, directly or indirectly, in improving yourself and your life? How well does your work enable you to contribute to improving others and their lives?

How well does your work respect your personal integrity, values, boundaries and standards?

Do you generally know what to do in any work situation, and when and how to do it?

Are you happy with your work? Are you happy with your career? Are you happy with your life?

This Guide to Right Working for Right Living can help you to explore these questions, and to understand, and even to change, the answers you find.

The guide lays a foundation with a basic philosophy and some practical tips for changing your answers to these questions, so your answers become more suitable for who you are, what you need and what you want – in your work, as well as in your larger life.

The basic philosophy for Mind Your Own Career – the basic philosophy for right working and for right living – is described in detail in the section About Right Working and Right Living.

This philosophy incorporates both traditional views of working and living, such as the Buddhist Eight-fold path, as well as some of the latest thinking and research from the fields of psychology, business and personal development.

The practical tips which you can find throughout the Mind Your Own Career guide include:

Self-assessments to help you develop a clear snapshot of your current career situation and to monitor changes on a regular basis.

Checklists