If you want to be in more control of your professional destiny, then it is essential to focus on various elements that influence your career path. One such element is your personality, which can have quite an influence in your professional life.
Throughout your career, you will find that your personality shapes your career path and that the jobs you take on can also shape your personality. This is a dynamic relationship that you can balance. It’s good to be aware of how your personal traits, reactions and tendencies will affect the people around you and your opportunities for the future.
How Does Your Personality Shape Your Career Path?
Your personality determines how you respond to pressure situations, the types of relationships you have with co-workers and managers, your work ethic and other extremely important attributes of your professional career. If you are an introvert who limits contact with co-workers, then that significantly reduces your exposure to people who can help you to develop your career. Your co-workers represent a great opportunity to establish a strong professional network within your industry and by ignoring your co-workers, you are limiting your growth.
If you establish a trend of flying off the handle each time a pressure situation occurs, then you can develop a reputation for not being management material. In this way, your personality could cripple your ability to ever move forward in your career and prevent you from achieving many of your career goals.
How Does Your Career Shape Your Personality?
Entry level employees react differently to situations than experienced professionals. Through the years, your contact with management level employees and other elements of your industry can affect how you react to different situations.
For example, if you were laid off from a job even though you had seniority over employees who got to stay with the company, then you would develop a distrust of management. That distrust can carry over into other aspects of your career and become either a problem, or it can shield you from making bad decisions.
Why Is It Important To Take Your Personality Into Account When Plotting Your Career Path?
When you discuss your career ambitions with co-workers, friends and family members, you probably talk about money and prestige. The goals you discuss revolve around advancing up the corporate ladder, getting raises and taking on more responsibility. But if you do not take your personality into account, then you could be plotting a career path that will never truly satisfy you.
Creating a career path requires consideration of factors such as job prospects and money, however, internal factors such as your personality should not be ignored. If, in reality, the idea of being responsible for a large staff of people makes you uncomfortable, then your pursuit of a management career is a bad idea. What if you really want to get involved in research and stay out of the management limelight? By following your personality, you can develop a career path that satisfies your need for material success and also allows you to feel personally satisfied with your accomplishments.
At Sandbox Advisors, we know how important it is to align your career path with your personality. We also understand how years of corporate experience can alter your perception of the corporate world and change your personality. Sign up for a free consultation and we will show you how to utilize your personality as a strong career tool and develop a career path that will bring you satisfaction as well a success.