Make Life More Stable with More Frequent Job Changes

There is a great post by Penelope Trunk, at Brazen Careerist, on ways to make your life more stable with frequent job changes.  While the change I’m contemplating at the moment isn’t necessarily a full change, as I’m looking to change to a different station and post in the same organization, it’s still important to not get too complacent in any one career path or workplace setting. I love the statement she makes, “companies are under too much pressure to be lean and flexible (read: layoffs, downsizing, reorgs), so workers have to be, too (read: constantly on the alert for new job possibilities).”  I have a few friends who still live with the “work to get the gold watch” mentality.  They rarely take opportunities to develop new skillsets, they don’t work to advance their position within their company, and they don’t attempt to be more valuable than simply what their position description denotes. They work 8 - 5 and nothing else.  In this day and age, that simply doesn’t cut it on a regular basis.  You have to look for every single opportunity to shine. 

I also appreciate the point Trunk makes that “you will experience more personal growth from changing jobs frequently.”  I’m in a position now that has been of extreme value to me.  I can’t tell you how important it was to my personal development and my career development, to take this position.  It has been and will continue to be, if I stay in this post, a valuable learning experience.  However, I’m looking for a new job, not because this isn’t a good job with great benefits, but because this job doesn’t have much more to offer me in the realm of advancing my skill set.  Sure, I’ll continue to polish my presentation skills, hone in on working through politically charged situations, and adapt even more tools to work with varied and diverse groups of people.  However, I just don’t feel I can grow this position much more, simply because of the way it is configured in the organization as a whole and hence there are limited opportunities for my continued growth and development.  (Note - of course if I keep this position, I plan to look at various ways to change its orientation in the organization to allow for more growth, but at this point I’m not sure that is even in the best interest of the organization).

Towards the middle of her post, Trunk points to a true ho-ohana style value, “Key values today are time and relationships. Stability means knowing you can get yourself work that is fun and accommodates those values. The stable people are those who can manage to consistently get work they enjoy that pays their bills.”  Isn’t that true.  You want to live life while working - not wait for retirement - which is about as uncertain as anything these days - to live your life.

This entry was posted on February 28, 2007 at 11:00 am and is filed under why work, values, value of work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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