One of the reasons why many people, especially Millenials and Gen Z-ers are anxious and confused about their careers is because of a lack of structure within which they can understand their careers nowadays.
If I asked my grandfather, who is of the silent generation, what careers he knows, he would say doctor, engineer, pharmacist, novelist, at best. Software engineer, copywriter, youtube channel manager, VFX specialist, would be a stretch. Blockchain talent analyst, real-virtual transfer shop manager, cyborg psychologist, are up and coming jobs that even I have only recently read about.
Jobs and careers are shifting and emerging very rapidly along with changes in the economy, technological developments, and innovations. The 100 jobs of the future report presents jobs and career paths that the least of us have ever heard of.
What all these jobs have in common is, that they are interdisciplinary and inter-industry. They fit nowhere into the simple, cookie-cutter, traditional career categorization.
Now let’s talk about ‘cookie-cutter’ careers, also known as ‘single-track’ careers.
These are, as the name says, careers that aim at a clear and single outcome. For example, the career track to becoming a neurosurgeon, corporate lawyer, or CPA (Chartered Professional Accountant).
Here are some things that these careers have in common:
- There is a clear path to achieving the final goal, or position.
- The professions are highly regulated, and there are definite requirements, certifications, training needed to be allowed to work in that job. E.g., you can’t become a lawyer by completing some online courses and internships.
- They are all high-paying careers, require crazy hard work and a high level of intelligence to succeed
- They are very prestigious and status symbols (although not just that).
- As these careers have existed for decades if not centuries and plenty of people have done it before, there is more than enough information, success stories to study, and role models to emulate.
By referring to these careers as ‘cookie-cutter’ careers, I don’t mean to degrade them at all.
On the contrary, cookie cutters are useful and indispensable. If you want a star-shaped cookie and don’t want it to look like it was made by a three-year-old, you better use a cookie-cutter.
The resulting cookie will be a legit-looking cookie that many people will want to buy and eat. The cookie-cutter definitely produces something useful.
But there are thousands of other types of cookies one can make that are as yummy and as useful as the ones produced with a cookie-cutter.
These are hand-crafted cookies, shaped into a specific form that the person making it wants to have.
And in this blog post, we’re going to compare cookie-cutter cookies with more hand-crafted ‘cookies’.
While for some people, cookie-cutter or single-track careers are best, for many other people, hand-crafted careers work better.
So let’s slide out of the cookie analogy and use the term ‘single-track’ career. What is a single-track career? I hate getting caught up in terminology, but it really helps to understand the differences in career and career philosophies, and ultimately this will help you to build the kind of career that is fulfilling and meaningful.
A single-track career, also called traditional career, linear career, ‘career for life’, are careers with a clear outcome in mind, with a clear and structured path leading to it.
People in earlier centuries pursued this career path because it was the only one that existed or was deemed worth pursuing. Nowadays the type of people who pursue this career path are the ones who:
- Have formed a clear purpose for their life and/or career early on: They are crystal clear about what they want to do for their whole life (e.g. to be a medical doctor to treat patients). Yes, these people exist.
- Feel pressured or are actually pressured into entering these careers.
- Prefer security and a big, stable paycheck over uncertainty and exploring other possibilities. Psychologists might say that these people tend to be lower in openness, although this is a generalization and I don’t have proof for this (yet).
- Are risk-averse or afraid to explore more unproven paths and prefer to stick to ‘tested’ career paths.
If you are someone who’s pursuing a traditional career path, you can easily guess which of the above reasons are good reasons. Having full clarity on one’s purpose or mission in life is a solid reason, while the remaining ones are highly questionable.
In case this still sounds too abstract, think of a family member or friend of yours, who since her teens always knew that she wanted to become a dentist. She studied dentistry, became a dentist, was never distracted from her path, opened her own clinic, and is fulfilled in her career.
Personally, I am extremely grateful that there are people who choose this type of career path. These are solid, tough, highly-demanding jobs. If you reading this right now are among these people, then thank you for picking up this challenge!
If you, out of your own will, are pursuing a single-track career path, then please do not misunderstand this post as an encouragement to abandon single-track career paths for the sake of it. If you have no doubts about your career path, stick to it.
This post is meant for all the other millions of people who
- cannot bear the thought of pursuing a single career for their entire life.
- have multiple, strong interests and skills that they want to pursue professionally, and not just as a hobby.
- don’t have clarity about their purpose and their ‘Why’ (yet).
- have an idea for a new, innovative career that doesn’t exist yet.
- have a purpose, have a vision, and know that it cannot be achieved by pursuing a single-track career, but rather through a combination or a ‘hybridized’ career.
- need to pursue more than one career to either feel fully alive or to balance out aspects of the other career.
The above is the first, informal introduction to Multiple Careers of which you will hear much more about in this blog.
Now that we have a basic understanding of the background of ‘single-track’ careers versus ‘multiple careers’, let’s now talk about the importance or even urgency of understanding this.
The majority of people are only familiar with the single-track career path. No normal person will actually use this term. But people are referring to exactly this when they ask questions like:
- ‘So, what career are you pursuing?’
- ‘Are you changing jobs again?’
- ‘What do you want to be?’
Parents, some relatives, and close friends might ask this question. The reason could be that they feel anxious for you about your apparent lack of consistency in sticking with a defined, single-path career track.
But oftentimes, other people are too shy, careful, or diplomatic to ask these questions.
Instead, often it’s us asking ourselves these questions when we’re anxious about our careers.
I’ve asked myself similar questions recurringly, especially when I was at crossroads in my career, including:
- What am I actually doing?
- What am I trying to achieve?
- Where am I heading?
- Do I have a career? Am I in the right career?
- How do I explain to people what I’m doing?
If any of these questions occupy your mind, then you are likely experiencing a form of career anxiety, anxiety brought on by confusion about where you are with your career, manifesting in worry, fear, regret, feeling lost, sometimes anger, or a sense of disillusionment, and unhappiness.
There are many underlying reasons for this. One of the main reasons is an outdated understanding of careers. The common belief held by people that a good and successful career is a single-track career.
And I don’t blame them, you, or anyone. People tend to hold on to that which is familiar, has a proven track record, and is easy to understand and conceptualize.
The glory of the career of a neurosurgeon is easy to grasp, the career of a YouTuber who makes short films and coaches, not.
I wish I had the stats, but as I don’t, I dare to estimate that the percentage of people suitable to pursue a single-track career path is somewhere between 60%-70%. Please drop a note in the comments if you have data on this!
That leaves a guestimate of 30%-40% of people who would flourish and thrive with multiple careers, or with a multiple careers philosophy in mind.
Another guess that I’m making here is, that you reading right now fall into the latter category. You might be dying to find out more about this and how to deal with this realization.
Now, what if you fall into this 40%-60% of people who do not want to follow a single-track career path?
You might be suffering a bit because you want to make sense of your career. You don’t want to feel like you’re lost, useless, a failure or even worse feel like you’re behind because you haven’t figured it out yet.
Rest assured that we’ll get into all of that. By reading my blog post, you are making a big contribution to keeping this blog and my motivation to write, alive.
My mission with this blog post and all the other content that I produce is to establish a new framework for understanding careers. And I promise that I will keep on writing and squeezing out my brain to solve this problem, in this blog as well as in an upcoming book that I will publish in June 2022.
For now, understand that all those feelings of frustration, disappointment, anxiety stem from a limited understanding of the alternatives to a ‘single-track’ career path. And from a false belief that the best career is the single-track career.
Hidden within might be an assumption that there is moral superiority in choosing a single-track career path. This is obviously not the case, and here’s the reason why:
The best thing that you can do about your career for the benefit of yourself, your family, and society, is to be a highly functional human being. You achieve that when you are aligned with yourself and when you become the best version of yourself. To become the best version of yourself, in turn, means to pick and pursue a career that supports that.
If you become a neurosurgeon because of external or internal pressure, or because you are lured by the high pay and prestige alone, it is unlikely that you will become the most successful neurosurgeon that you can be. If your heart is not fully in it, it will be extremely difficult to be excellent at it. Although there are factors that can offset the lack of interest, such as extremely high intelligence and fine motor skills, and a strong sense of duty and responsibility.
On the other hand, if you become a graphic designer and yoga teacher, your starting income may not be as high. But as you are fully in it, heart and soul as cliché as it might sound, you may be able to build a business that earns more than an ‘average’ neurosurgeon. And even if you earn a standard income, pursuing a career or careers that you are fully on board with produces positive externalities for yourself and others, including:
- Fulfillment and a sense of peace and joy
- Good physical and mental health
- A good mood that rubs off on others
- Truly being there and present for other people (because you’ve acknowledged your own needs first)
- Coming up with innovations that improve other people’s lives. Since you have low stress and anxiety level, you are able to access your imagination and creativity and come up with better solutions.
I hope that this short example has shown how pursuing a career that brings out the best for you, in the long run, ultimately benefits everyone.
Why in the long run? Pursuing multiple careers is a lifelong quest. Instead of taking 15, or 20 years to master, it is a lifelong journey of building careers.
Here, the career is not the end goal, but merely a way, a tool to become the best version of yourself.
