As your children grow, let them show you the type of people they are. Don’t assume they will follow in your footsteps. Ask them questions, let them discover what they love to do, and then gently show them the way to get there.
This post is about my own discovery and one way I believe we should help our children discover their own passions…
Yesterday I opened up an email from a retail clothing store and noticed they added something new to their typical 40-, 50-, or 60%-off advertisement. They added a link to read your horoscope…
Genius! I thought.
First off, as a blogger myself, I noticed that adding the horoscope to their daily email and offering this little surprise bonus for their readers is a great marketing tool. On the flip side, as a reader, I’m always up for a good horoscope – especially when there have been so many changes in my life… and there have been tons lately!
If you remember, I actually wrote a blog post a few months ago and made reference to how “things were changing”. I could sense it. Subtle hints were becoming apparent here and there and I could feel in my gut that something new was on the horizon for me.
I’ve been writing this blog for a year now. It was initially started to help promote the sidelight window panels I designed and now sell.
It then expanded to showcase the furniture I refinish and paint.
This blog and this creative work has helped me discover “what I want to be when I grow up”.
I envy people who know at a young age exactly the type of career they want. My two oldest children are now in high school so there’s been a lot of discussion about what they’d like to major in in college. We’re trying to help them just narrow down the field at this point. What are their favorite subjects? Do they want to work with numbers or do something more creative? Do they want to work in an office behind a desk or be more active?
We’re getting some clear answers as to what they don’t want to do and I’m envious they can even narrow it down that much at this point. I didn’t ask myself these types of questions when I was in high school and I now wish I had.
It’s taken me 40-something years and, after much trial and error, I’m realizing that I have to be in a creative environment.
I majored in marketing in college so I should have realized, but I didn’t have that epiphany back then. Marketing came as just common sense to me. Little did I realize that it wasn’t like that for everyone. Even today, I can’t seem to understand how someone doesn’t know how to promote even a simple fundraising event like a car wash! I guess the same holds true for someone who loves accounting, or finance, or the medical field. They love it so it comes easy to them.
As I look back, the jobs I most enjoyed were those that had some sort of creative aspect. When I was younger I worked in inside sales where I was able to write marketing collateral. When I got married I worked at Old Sturbridge Village and there oversaw the publishing of every piece of printed material – from brochures to calendars to books. When the kids were young and I was home with them, I wrote the website PTO Ideas and designed unique fundraising events related to it.
Of course, I’ve held other jobs in between – primarily bookkeeping jobs because that was the line of work my family was in and the opportunities that presented themselves when I was younger; but the jobs I most enjoyed involved project work.
I enjoy working on the short-term projects, seeing the finished product, and then moving on to create again.
One of the part-time jobs I took on 2-1/2 years ago though was the complete opposite of the project-related work I’ve had in the past. At the time, I was so busy with taking care of a home, my three children and their sports, a husband, and a dog that I thought what I needed was a job that I went to each week and processed the same work every week – work that I didn’t have to think about.
So I took a job at an accounting firm processing payroll for their many clients. However, I felt like a mouse on a spinning wheel. Or, like a postal worker where the mail just keeps on coming! There was never a sense of accomplishment for me because the exact same work would be there every day. There was never an end and never a sense of accomplishment.
Do I regret spending the last 2-1/2 years there? Absolutely not. I learned a lot about myself and the type of work I need to do.
I need to CREATE. I need to WRITE.
This story has a point, I promise.
Talk to your children at a very young age about the types of jobs that are available. Don’t just name the titles of positions; instead talk about the descriptions of different work environments.
Ask them if they want to work with their hands or sit at a desk behind a computer. Ask them if they prefer to be indoors or out. Ask them if they want to travel? To work with children or the elderly? To work in a hospital environment, a school, on a farm, or in a factory?
As your children grow, let them show you the type of people they are. Don’t assume they will follow in your footsteps. Ask them questions, let them discover what they love to do, and then gently show them the way to get there.
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