My son is still a little boy (I’m going to be a father for the second time in days now). One day, I want to recommend him to chose a path for his personal endeavors early in life, and to stick to it for as long as possible. “Personal endeavors” applies here to something we often call a career or profession. But not only.
Take a look below. See the difference? ‘B’ wins. Perhaps what’s most important here, is to stay on one track – develop evenly, avoid deviations. Deviations take time, kill resources and what’s often the case – hinder our personal integrity and in result – our self-confidence.
Many will say that nowadays you have to be universal. To some extent. Perhaps. But it usually goes for a “touch” of this and that, and not for trying to learn everything out there (“just because we are still searching”). In fact, especially today, there’s no time for that. Life goes on too fast.
What if we aren’t sure we’ve chosen well? Simple answer – we usually like what we are good at. Perhaps not letting go of our current path would be best?
Another picture:
Development in one area gives us the opportunity to grow geometrically. We start with the basics, as usual. I call this “the small blocks”. As it is typical with building blocks, they allow us to create bigger constructs. Gradually, the next step is to use those bigger constructs to create even bigger ones. Soon, we are way beyond the basics.
At some moment in life we are usually identified with our profession. Sad, but true. When asked “What are you doing in life?”, replying “I’m a human being” isn’t usually the best we can do. Being able to answer straightforwardly e.g. “I’m a carpenter”, “I’m a project manager”, “I’m a designer” gives us strength and confidence. We are someone. Especially, if we feel like the best.