You’ve heard the saying: “Life is a journey.” I used to think that meant one journey. Now I know better.

The journey I used to think of was a pretty straightforward one. It was like a journey from New York City to San Francisco. You drove to the George Washington Bridge, turned left, and stopped when you got to the Pacific Ocean.

I’m 62 now, and when I look back on my life, it’s not a journey at all. Instead it’s been a lot of them.

The journeys took me to different places. When I got there, the place was different from where I was before and often different from what I expected, so it took some getting used to.

Sometimes, like on a real trip to Mumbai, for example, I didn’t know the language and the customs. Sometimes I stayed a long while. Sometimes not.

If you’re coming of age today, your life is probably going to be a lot like mine. You won’t have just one career. You’ll probably have several. And you’ll have more work situations than that.

Take moment to click over and read about “21st Century Career Patterns.” In our time there’s not just one career, but several. There’s not just one journey. There’s several.

To get ready for a life with many different careers, you need to prepare yourself by analyzing your strengths and preferences, by learning to size up opportunities and by learning to find resources when you need them. It won’t be as easy as a one-journey life, but it’s likely to be more fun and satisfying.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 6:32 pm and is filed under Career Stages, Tools and Strategies for Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.