Work, Adaption, And The Difference Between What We Do And Who We Are
For a large portion of our lives, most of us are going to work. The form that work takes can vary enormously. We may work for someone else, build a business, practice a trade, pursue a profession, move between several occupations, or do some combination of all of them over the course of a lifetime. Because work occupies so much of our time, it can easily become connected to identity. One of the first questions we ask when meeting someone is often: “What do you do?” And somewhere along the way, what we do can quietly become confused with who we are.
I think career is more useful when we separate those things. Our career is one expression of our capabilities and participation in the world. It is not the entirety of the person participating. That distinction becomes especially important when careers change—which they frequently do.
Capability And Opportunity Are Not The Same Thing
One of the lessons I’ve had to learn personally is that being capable of doing something doesn’t guarantee that someone will give us the opportunity to do it. I’ve had avenues closed to me because of my history despite possessing the knowledge or ability necessary to perform the work. That forces an uncomfortable distinction: What am I capable of doing? And What opportunities are actually available to me? Those aren’t always the same answer.
We participate in systems involving employers, licensing requirements, laws, economics, reputation, education, credentials, social networks, competition, and sometimes simple timing. We don’t control all of those things. Sometimes we’re qualified and don’t get hired. Sometimes we’re overlooked. Sometimes an industry changes. Sometimes a company closes. Sometimes our history follows us. Sometimes the opportunity we expected simply isn’t there. That doesn’t automatically mean we’re incapable.
But capability by itself doesn’t make the external obstacle disappear either. Personal development requires being able to recognize both realities at the same time. We can acknowledge what isn’t under our control without surrendering responsibility for what still is.
Ask What The Obstacle Requires
When a path closes, there are several ways we can respond. We can spend the rest of our lives staring at the closed door. We can repeatedly throw ourselves against it. Or we can begin asking different questions. Is there another entrance? Do I need another qualification? Is there a skill I’m missing? Can I enter a related field? Can I create the opportunity myself? Do I need to abandon this particular direction altogether?
Sometimes persistence is the correct answer. Sometimes adaptation is. Knowing the difference isn’t always easy. I’ve had to explore different avenues because some of the conventional ones weren’t available to me. That necessity contributed significantly to the breadth of things I’ve learned over the years. When one direction didn’t work, I had to ask: What else can I do? Eventually that question becomes: What else can I learn to do? That is where career development and self-education begin feeding one another.
A Career Can Be A Curriculum
Work teaches us. Sometimes intentionally. Sometimes whether we want it to or not. We learn technical skills, but we also learn how we respond to responsibility, pressure, authority, uncertainty, conflict, competition, failure, boredom, success, and other people. A job can expose weaknesses we didn’t know we had. It can reveal abilities we didn’t realize were particularly valuable. It can teach us that something we thought we wanted isn’t actually what we want. And one occupation can teach us skills that become unexpectedly valuable somewhere completely different.
That’s why I don’t necessarily view a career as one straight line. For some people it will be. They find their field, specialize, develop expertise, and spend decades refining it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Other people will move. They may change occupations several times. Develop different areas of expertise. Combine skills that don’t initially seem related. Leave one industry and enter another. That isn’t necessarily a failure to find a career. It can be the career. The important question is whether we’re learning from those transitions or merely repeating them.
Credentials And Capability Serve Different Purposes
There is also a distinction between knowing how to do something and being professionally qualified to do it. Those shouldn’t be confused. There are things we can teach ourselves. There are other activities where formal training, certification, licensing, or demonstrated competence is required for good reason. I’m a certified personal trainer with several specializations. I can study health, fitness, and any number of subjects independently for the rest of my life—and I probably will—but professional qualification still matters when I’m accepting responsibility for providing certain services to someone else.
The same principle applies elsewhere. Knowledge tells us something about what we understand. Qualification tells other people something about what we’ve demonstrated or been authorized to do. Neither automatically guarantees the other. We can meet someone with impressive credentials who stopped meaningfully learning years ago. We can meet someone extraordinarily knowledgeable who has no formal qualification whatsoever. Career development means understanding when each matters. Sometimes the next step is learning independently. Sometimes it’s experience. Sometimes it’s finding a mentor. And sometimes the answer really is: Go get the credential.
Work Can Develop Us Without Becoming Us
Career can become dangerous when our entire identity depends upon it. If I am nothing but my occupation, what happens when I lose the job? What happens when I retire? What happens if my body can no longer perform the work? What happens when technology makes my role obsolete? What happens when the company decides it doesn’t need me anymore? What happens if I discover that I no longer want the life I’ve spent twenty years building?
Losing a career can still hurt. It can affect income, stability, relationships, confidence, routine, and our sense of direction. Separating identity from occupation doesn’t make those consequences imaginary. It simply means that when a role ends, the person who developed while occupying that role remains. The skills remain. The experience remains. The lessons remain. The mistakes remain. The knowledge remains. And we decide what comes next.
Advancement Doesn’t Always Mean Up
We tend to picture career development vertically. Entry level. Promotion. Management. Leadership. Higher income. Higher status. More responsibility. There is nothing inherently wrong with climbing. But upward isn’t the only direction in which development occurs.
Sometimes we need to go deeper into a specialty. Sometimes sideways into another discipline. Sometimes backward to learn something we skipped. Sometimes we need broader experience rather than a higher title. Sometimes taking a lower-paying position gives us access to experience that becomes more valuable later. Sometimes success means leaving an impressive position that is destroying the rest of our life.
And sometimes we reach exactly where we thought we wanted to go and discover that the view from there changes what we want. Career development should involve perspective, not merely elevation.
Money Matters, But It Isn’t The Only Measure
Most of us work partly because we need resources. There is nothing shameful about that. Income matters. Financial stability matters. Being compensated appropriately for our skills matters. Pretending money is irrelevant doesn’t make rent disappear. But compensation is still only one measure of a career. There are others.
What does the work cost us physically? Mentally? Emotionally? How much of our time does it consume? Does it develop useful capabilities? Does it create future options? Are we learning? Do we respect what we’re doing? Does the work support the life we’re trying to build, or has maintaining the career become the life itself?
Different stages of life may produce different answers. Sometimes we take work primarily because we need money. Sometimes learning matters more. Sometimes flexibility does. Sometimes stability. Sometimes purpose. Sometimes we’re building something that won’t pay particularly well until later. There doesn’t need to be one answer for every season of our lives. But it helps if we know what we’re exchanging our time for.
Build Capabilities, Not Just Positions
Jobs can disappear. Companies can fail. Industries can change. Technology can alter what skills are valuable. External circumstances can close opportunities we expected to remain open. Titles therefore provide less security than they sometimes appear to. Capabilities travel better.
Can we communicate? Can we learn? Can we solve problems? Can we work with other people? Can we work independently? Can we adapt? Can we organize ourselves? Can we teach? Can we lead when leadership is required and follow when someone else knows more than we do? Do we possess technical abilities somebody actually needs? Can we acquire new ones?
Every useful capability increases the number of ways we can potentially participate. That doesn’t guarantee opportunity. Nothing does. But it gives us more to work with when circumstances change.
Sometimes We Have To Create The Position
There is one final possibility that matters particularly to me. Sometimes the role we’re looking for doesn’t exist in the form we need it to. That doesn’t necessarily mean we abandon the idea. We may have to build it. A business is one example. So is independent practice, freelance work, creating a project, developing a new service, or combining several abilities into something that doesn’t fit neatly inside an existing job description.
Creating our own opportunity introduces different problems. There is risk. Responsibility. Uncertainty. Administration. Marketing. Money. Failure becomes much more personally visible. But it also changes the question from: “Who will give me permission to do this?” to: “What would I have to build in order to do it responsibly?” That is not the right path for everyone. But it is a path.
Career As Participation
We cannot completely control what the working world does with us. Other people make decisions. Organizations have priorities. Economies change. Opportunities appear and disappear. Our own circumstances change with them. What we can do is become increasingly conscious of how we participate.
We can develop capabilities. Learn. Adapt. Seek qualifications where they’re necessary. Recognize when persistence is appropriate and when it’s time to change direction. Decide what we’re willing to exchange for money, status, opportunity, experience, or purpose. And remember that whatever occupation we currently hold is something we’re doing. It isn’t everything we are.
A career can give us resources. Purpose. Structure. Knowledge. Relationships. Challenges. Opportunities to serve other people. And an enormous amount of information about ourselves. But perhaps one of its most useful lessons is learning that we are capable of continuing to develop even when the position we’re standing in changes. We cannot guarantee that every door will open for us. We can continue developing the person who decides what to do when one doesn’t.
