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There's plenty of kind, optimistic advice out there:
- Do what you love and the money will follow.
- Follow your dreams.
- Just believe in yourself.
- The universe will provide.
Nice rhetoric but it too often doesn't work, especially for people to whom success hasn't come easily.
So here is unvarnished advice that, based on the 4,900 clients I've worked with over the past three decades, is more likely to work in the real world.
Choosing a Career
Do what you love and malaise will likely follow. Most people love similar things --- entertainment, sports, fashion, the environment. So supply-and-demand causes most not-stars to make not even enough money to pay back their student loans, let alone earn a decent living year after year. So they end up mooching off of parents, partner, and/or taxpayer. And even if they land a job doing what they love, the reality often doesn't live up to the dream because of that supply/demand imbalance: Many are paid poorly, treated poorly, and often worry about the horde waiting in the wings to take their job.
Don't wait for career passion. Most people come to love their career only after choosing it and taking the time to become expert at it. So take a month or three to explore career options and then pick what feels best, even if it doesn't make you do handsprings.
Status is the enemy of contentment. Status often forces you into a career you don't like or have trouble competing in and then buying expensive things that force you to stay in that career: a tony address, car, clothes, vacations. All of those bring less pleasure than the displeasures required to afford that stuff.
Intelligence matters and is very difficult to improve. It's usually wiser to accept your basic level of brainpower and find work for which that's adequate.
There will not be enough good jobs for not-stars. The last large bastion of secure, benefitted, not-offshoreable jobs for not-stars is government.
Trade idealism for realism? We continue to spend many billions every year trying to close the achievement gap despite the previous trillions' failure . We acknowledge the power of genes in nearly everything yet somehow ignore that or presume the laws of nature are suspended when dealing with the achievement gap. You can tune up a VW forever and it will never come close to closing its achievement gap with a Porsche. If you want a career of accomplishment, consider something with greater prospects for success.
Don't sell out for money, for example, working for a company or nonprofit whose product or service is inferior and survives mainly because of marketing.
On the Job
Find out the truth. Most people think they're above average. Learning the truth can help you before it's too late. And if you are above average, feedback helps you be even better. Ongoing, get feedback from your boss and respected coworkers, perhaps using TalentCheckup.
Be sure your self-esteem doesn't exceed your merit Cornell University research finds that most people aren't intelligent enough to realize their lack of intelligence.
Work long. An old saw is, "Work smart, not long." Alas, today's truth is that, in many workplaces, especially prestigious organizations, working long is also key to being promoted and not "laid off."
Make a checklist for each complicated task you often do. That's a simple way to improve your performance and reduce errors.
Don't pathologize hard workers as workaholics. Heroic is more accurate. If you're denigrating hard workers, could it be because you feel inferior?
Most times, the boss is right. Some people become boss for non-merit reasons but, on average, bosses are smarter, more knowledgeable, harder working, and psychologically healthier than the average supervisee.
Be sure you're judging people on their merits, Resist racism and sexism as well as reverse racism and sexism. The latter may feel virtuous but, long-term, may well be a net negative for workplaces and for society.
Invest in your steak, not your sizzle. Invest in mentors and workshops rather than fancy suits and cars. You want to be judged as a person of substance, not as all hat an no cattle.
Carefully weigh the likely benefits of going back to school versus what you otherwise could do with the time and money. You may well decide there's a more cost- and time-effective path to improvement.
Career change is tough. If you expect to change careers, your first job will probably come from a personal connection or after a long training program.
Money
Invest conservatively and/or internationally. America will be home to ever more poor people, and government will likely be generous to them, taxing corporations and individuals ever more to pay for the largesse. America could become more like a third-world than first-world nation. Invest conservatively and/or in faster-growing economies such as Singapore, India or China. (Note: I am not a licensed investment adviser. For that reason and because everyone's situation is different, consider consulting a trusted financial professional before making investment decisions.)
Donate to causes that would yield large ripple effect yet wouldn't otherwise be funded. One of my favorites: mentorships for high-performing kids.
Emotional health
Accept your basic self. Change is hard and improbable. Do you often hear of people who lost weight and kept it off? Of a dullard becoming brilliant? A laid-back person becoming dogged? A sexually apathetic person becoming lusty? A phlegmatic person becoming ebullient? A flighty one becoming efficient? An emotion-centered person becoming highly rational?
No wallowing. After the first visceral, momentary negative reaction to a setback, resilient people don't allow themselves to wallow even for a moment. They say to themselves, if only unconsciously, "What's the next positive baby step I can take right now?" And they force themselves to take that step lest they slip deeper into the quicksand.
If anger-prone, breathe. If you're quick to anger, at the first sign you'll likely blow up, take a deep breath. Non-negotiable.
The more you complain, the worse you'll ultimately feel . And even if people politely listen to your whining, you may be viewed as high-maintenance and expendable by your employer, friends, and even spouse. Force yourself to get on with it.
Blaming usually hurts you more than it helps. Do what you can and move on.
Suppress negative thoughts about things you can't fix . "Processing" them makes those worrisome thoughts more top-of-mind while often not helping you move forward.
Overall success and contentment
Each morning, be grateful you were allowed to wake up. Commit to using that gift for maximum good. Don't waste your heartbeats. They're limited.
Your life's meaning will be determined more on how productive you've been than on how much fun you've had. As Theodore Roosevelt said, "Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."
It's more important to be good than to be nice.
Procrastination devastates one's professional and personal life. Grow up. Get comfortable being uncomfortable or you're going to get a lot more uncomfortable. Key to avoiding procrastination is to change your foundational principle from "Do as little work as you can get away with" to "Be as productive as reasonably possible."
Become a storyteller. It's sad but true that you'll more likely change people more with one emotional anecdote than with ten facts. A particularly potent story structure is the quest: The protagonist faces a problem, s/he tries to solve it, and how it resolves. Develop a collection of good stories and practice telling them until you can render them compellingly.
It's more important than ever to take care of your health. Our health care system is already overloaded and will get much more so soon. More than ever, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
ADD is real. If you meet the criteria, it's often worth at least a trial on medication.
Use The Meter. Before beginning an activity, ask yourself, "Where does this fall on a continuum from -10 (selling crack to kids) to +10 (working toward world peace.). Being more conscious about how we spend our time can boost our life's meaning.
Don't look back. We all have reasons to lament things in our past. Thinking about them rarely helps. Stay in the moment. My father rarely talked about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp and when I asked him why, he said, "Martin, the Nazis took five years from my life. I won't give them one minute more. Never look back. Always take the next step forward."
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Named the San Francisco Bay Area's "Best Career Coach," Marty Nemko has been career and personal coach to 4,500 clients and enjoys a 96% client-satisfaction rate. The author of seven books (250,000 copies sold) including How to Do Life: What They Didn't Teach You in School plus over 2,000(!) published articles.
