{"id":631,"date":"2010-02-12T16:00:33","date_gmt":"2010-02-12T23:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/?p=631"},"modified":"2010-02-12T16:00:33","modified_gmt":"2010-02-12T23:00:33","slug":"balancing-choice-versus-constraint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/career\/balancing-choice-versus-constraint","title":{"rendered":"Balancing choice versus constraint"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Balance.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-632\" title=\"Balance\" src=\"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/Balance.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"49\" height=\"70\" \/><\/a>It&#8217;s an interesting balancing act that many come to in their careers:\u00a0 In some ways you feel very constrained, while simultaneously enjoying a multitude of options.\u00a0 It feels weird.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Constraints include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The opportunities you&#8217;ve been given in recent jobs<\/li>\n<li>Your education, skills, and strengths<\/li>\n<li>The people and companies who would hire you today<\/li>\n<li>Scarcity of job openings<\/li>\n<li>The obligations you have to your family and others, especially financial<\/li>\n<li>Your current level of savings, that cushion against unexpected events<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you&#8217;re looking for a job that looks just like what you&#8217;ve been doing, these kinds of restrictions can drive you crazy.\u00a0 What do you do if nobody is hiring that kind of position?<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the interesting part:\u00a0 You&#8217;re just a hair&#8217;s-breadth away from a dizzying number of options.\u00a0 OK, so nobody is hiring for the job that I was doing a few months ago.\u00a0 So what do I do?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Different advice is bombarding me from every direction<\/li>\n<li>I could potentially do lots of things, especially with a little education<\/li>\n<li>I know quite a few people, who I suppose <em>could<\/em> help me in some way<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It all comes down to making some choices so that I can make progress.\u00a0 I can&#8217;t explore 100 possible career paths simultaneously, or I won&#8217;t make any progress at all.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s how to make progress:\u00a0 Make some choices based upon what you know now, imperfect as that is.\u00a0 Investigate, think, explore, and make a little progress.\u00a0 Decide whether this has been useful.\u00a0 Then repeat the cycle during your entire career.<\/p>\n<p>Really?\u00a0 <em>Really?<\/em> Yes.\u00a0 Things are going to change so much during your lifetime that you have to get comfortable with this cycle of learning and adaptation.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s just no other way.<\/p>\n<p><input id=\"gwProxy\" type=\"hidden\" \/><input id=\"jsProxy\" onclick=\"jsCall();\" type=\"hidden\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s an interesting balancing act that many come to in their careers:\u00a0 In some ways you feel very constrained, while simultaneously enjoying a multitude of options.\u00a0 It feels weird.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15,76,7,37],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-carl","4":"has-more-link","5":"post-631","7":"format-standard","8":"category-career","9":"post_tag-career-coaching","10":"post_tag-career","11":"post_tag-job-change","12":"post_tag-learning"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":634,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions\/634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dierschow.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}