This article is my first guest post and it comes from Nina Segares and it's a discussion about what we really are trying to get out of our professional lives. I whole-heartedly agree with the message and thought it would be great to share with my readers as well as a little footnote at the end.
I want you to ask yourself these questions: What can money give you? What do you need money for? At first glance these may sound like silly questions and you might think you have the answers already.
To pay the bills of course! To buy stuff that I want. To make that trip and see the world. To buy a new house. Like this we keep adding "things" to the endless list of we "need".
Now I want you to give it some deeper thought and ask yourself some more questions: Which of those things will allow me to live a simple life where my happiness doesn’t depend on my bank account? What could I take out from my wish list to make it simpler? How much do I really need?
Being in the I.T industry the pursuit of money and possessions has been called to my attention over the years. How many times have you seen people pursuing that next job for extra money to the ridiculous point that they would change jobs for a 5% raise or even less? The demand for people in I.T. has become a global problem with money being the main tool used by many companies to attract talent. This had created a major issue: Career paths based on salary where the best company is the one that will pay you more. Would you take your dream job if you had to earn less to a fair point?
This is just something for you to think about because maybe pursuing a healthy work environment that can provide a good balance between life and work is a better goal than acquiring money. Or better still what about having a job with real growth opportunities that would allow you to do what you love? Think about your career path and what you want to get from your job and what will make your life easier (this is what HR won’t ever tell you) and don’t let money drive that decision. Of course, it is a variable that we all consider since we all need to pay the bills, but it really shouldn't be the main deciding factor.
By Nina Segares
I've been applying for new jobs myself, so this has been on the top of my mind. What do I really care about in a job? I know people who are busy chasing the largest amount of money they can make in order to retire early. But I want to figure out what is that I love and do that for life. As an example of this, I am currently on vacation in Costa Rica, sitting on my laptop writing this as a break from working on rebuilding my website. I love writing, I love music, I love building web apps and I love learning new things. If a company can give me autonomy, work-life balance and a feeling that I am making a difference doing something I enjoy why would I want to retire?
Except of course if my debut album Breaking Good that I'm working allowed me to make a living playing my own music... But if that happened I don't think I'd retire until my body stopped me.