Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals on March 6, 2008 at 1:12 pm
My friend and fellow writer Suzanne Grossman posted a great piece on The Huffington Post today, called “Just a Temp?” It’s a great reminder that it’s okay to stop achieving for a while and accept that our careers and lives go through natural ups, downs and transitions.
Here is the beginning of the article:
The word that sums up New York is “achieve,” says Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love. This is based on her Italian friend’s theory that every city has one word that describes the thoughts of most of its inhabitants. (Rome’s is sex, her friend says.) I think most busy, on-the-go New Yorkers would agree that achieve, a verb, describes us to a T. Is it possible to live in this city and step outside of achieve? These have been my thoughts ever since I left my job at the end of last summer and became a temp.
At 33, I have achieved quite a lot. I’ve had many successful jobs and worked my way up to increasingly fancier titles. I went from being an intern to having interns. I’m one of the founders of a nonprofit for girls and music, and I’ve achieved a healthy amount of satisfaction with my own music playing. When I became unemployed in August, I asked myself what I was doing back at a place I thought I had left behind in my early 20s — the great unknown. Instead of feeling bad about it, as I did back then, I decided to flirt with “unachieve” for awhile, standing still, being no one in particular, doing nothing in particular that would define me during this period of growth and transition. I started to tell people I was “in between” and that has suited me surprisingly well…
Read the full article here.
@ Saira – Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I absolutely believe that it’s important to do one thing for your career every day to keep moving forward. It’s my interpretation that Suzanne “downshifted” her one thing a day for a while. She is still working, networking and making income, just not on a “high-powered” path right now.
I hope you’ll keep commenting; I appreciate your thoughts.
- Lindsey
@ Elizabeth – Thanks for commenting. All of us go through periods of transition and I’m glad you are appreciating yours. Keep us posted on your progress, and I hope you enjoy life in Colorado!
- Lindsey
I really liked what you said in the Forte webinar about doing something for our careers everyday, forever. I think that is much better advice to motivate our generation than to say it is okay to “unachieve” for a while. This is especially since most of us can’t really say “oh I’ve done this much thus far so now I can relax” as Grossman states in her article.
Thanks so much for posting this article! I’ve just relocated from NJ to Colorado and am “in between” myself. This couldn’t have been posted at a more opportune time!