The powerful relationship between vocation and career success

Nowadays, the idea of professional success has become integrated into the world of personal development. Why is that?

From an early age, all human beings are in a constant process of a process of constant evaluation of success. Our parents try to enroll us in the best schools (from their possibilities) to be able to face the challenge of "being successful". Now more than ever we find schools with so many names, methodologies, theories, that sometimes we do not even know what they mean.

The reality is that in school there can be an incredible work, but there are many of us psychologists who vote how, once people get home, they throw away all the previous progress. This is because each person, from his or her perspective, has a completely different view of success.

What is the relationship between vocation and job success? In what ways do we understand what it is to succeed in life through careers?

The generational aspect and the idea of success

Let's first understand the generational perspective, without a doubt the "Baby Boomers" (born between the years 1946 and 1965) lived such an important political, social and cultural change, that for them work is more than a lifestyle. According to the point of view of this generation work had to be dignified, respectable, and if people lasted 30 years or more, they had to work for a living.And if people lasted 30 years in the same position or company, it was a reflection of guaranteed success, since it was synonymous with not only professional but also family stability.

Generation X is the one that currently moves the world of work.. They received that name because their previous generation could not understand it, in fact, they said they had no direction. The strongest change that this generation introduced in the world of work was to move from electrical appliances to electronic devices, the use of the Internet, email, etc.

The way in which members of generation X see success has to do with climbing positions within companies. For them it is very important to work in an organization; they are looking for economic stability. Few understand entrepreneurship; indeed, I dare say that many view it with fear.

The irruption of the millennial

However, the "Millenials", famous for being a controversial and little understood generation, are people who are looking for success not only in their own right but also in the future, are people who are looking for success not only in a company, but also in their own lives.. They are looking for short-term projects that will help them to use all their intelligence and enhance their creativity. They are not interested in working for many years in a company, which is why we find so many entrepreneurs in this generation.

Their vision of success is meeting new people, new cultures, changing projects easily, being able to manage their time, not being dependent on an organization, etc.

Shaping the new idea of success

We have already seen that the idea of career advancement has been mutating over time. So how does one achieve success?

Undoubtedly, one thing that is clear is that people who do what they love today have a better chance of achieving success. Vocation is fundamental in the process of success.There is a growing concern for human beings to turn their vocation into a work project. Here we have as an example great characters such as Steve Jobs, Indra Nooyi, Jack Ma, among others.

Thus, currently the idea of success that is gradually being imposed has to do with the idea of freedom and expanding the domain of work success to the area of personal development. Learning skills that are meaningful from an intimate and existential point of view, learning abilities that can be transported to other kinds of jobs, however different they may be from the ones we have become accustomed to.

In short, success and vocation have merged into one in response to an increasingly flexible work environment. This is a reflection of the constant need to adapt to change.

Developing vocation from a young age

We often think that vocation should start in the last 2 years of high school and it is not so, it is a process that lasts many years. For the same reason I propose 3 aspects that should be taken into account and at the same time work with the child's development. These are:

Educational

It is fundamental that from infancy children learn skills that help them to solve problems, oriented to concreteoriented to concrete objectives. More and more often employers tell us that they cannot find the talent; this is because in most countries they are educated to memorize and not to solve.

Social

When deciding on a career, many young people are more concerned about going to the same school as their best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend than they are about researching the best option for their future. In addition, we have too many career taboos (university or not), which are misdiagnosedHow many times have we heard: "don't study that career because you will starve to death".

Individual

It is essential that people take care of their physical and psychological health. This way they will be able to face life from a balanced perspective. My best recommendation is to travel, get to know other places and cultures. helps to expand the optics with which one interprets reality and helps to adopt a more flexible thinking. and helps to adopt a more flexible way of thinking. Knowing other ideologies, increasing creativity, knowing what is being done elsewhere and what can work in our projects.

The importance of previous preparation

It is clear that the relationship between vocation and success comes not only from knowing how to choose a career, but also from a long and fun personal preparation. But we must understand that in order to achieve success, we need a clear path and goals, parents must help our children to know themselves, provide them with information, not stigmatize their beliefs or their vocation. and much less think that one or another career is less or more important.

To the extent that as a society we learn to value and respect each profession, we will be able to understand that each one of us, from our starting point, is trying to place little by little the step that will lead us to transcendence.