The most common professional advice that high school and college students seem to believe is right is to open as many doors as possible. Students can become so over involved with leadership opportunities and projects that they feel completely burned out and they forget to focus on what is most meaningful to them and their time. While I admire people that can manage their time with so much work, I notice that they aren't able to dedicate their full effort to a project but instead to all these half-hearted projects that will look great listed on their resume. Sometimes its more meaningful to focus on doing one task really well then doing multiple things with little value put into them. The purpose of this article is to help you consider if you have too many doors open and if what you are doing isn't helping you float but actually making you sink.
How much you do or what you do isn't as important as why you do it. Your ability to explain why you find value in things in the most important professional skill you could have. You can start by building value in yourself in what you do not just what you want to put on your resume.
Forget about building your resume, build yourself.
Resumes are still very important, they list the skills in your professional toolbox, your leadership experience, and your degree. Other than just a general list, what do you want your resume to represent? In interviews, your resume isn't what matters, what matters is your ability to create value in yourself and your ability to prove it to others. Talk about the experiences that have helped you become who you are today. Provide a more unique narrative than just bullet points of admirable qualities you think other people would want to hear.
Building yourself means volunteering your time in things that you find valuable, not just because you think it would look good on your resume. What you put on your resume won't matter if you can't explain why it was valuable to you. Opportunities for "investing in yourself" could be anything from traveling to new places to meeting new people in your local community. Invest in things that make YOU more valuable, even if you aren't getting paid for it.
Summary: Don't worry about the perfect title to put on your resume - focus on your skills, knowledge, networking experience, and confidence that makes you valuable as a person. It is entirely possible that a $20 book or a conversation with a mentor could have more value to you than a class you took for your degree. Focus on the "why" not just the "what."
Stay Creative.
Don't stay stuck on what you thought you once wanted, your direction can always change. When you're younger, the energy, creativity, and potential you have is more valuable to you than the amount of money you make. Sometimes we are told to find a job in a growing industry and that is where we believe we will make the most money and find happiness. However, there are no guarantees that one major or job will be the most in demand because the jobs that will be in demand ten to twenty years from now may not have even been created yet.
The best jobs are being created by ambitious people who love what they do and are committed to providing valuable experiences. Focus on the projects, companies, industries, or people you want to work with. Tell them that you value what they do and that you can do something valuable for them.
Maybe you won't have your dream job right away but finding value in the things that you do and your ability to stay creative with new ideas will take you far. Learning takes a lifetime.
Close Doors.
People will tell you to always keep your options open and to keep many different doors open "just in case" you need ______ experience for ______(unknown) reason. What they should be telling you is that building bridges is sometimes a good thing, but if you know a door will lead to a life that is unhappy you should shut it. Too often we believe we need a never ending list of experiences to show that we are well rounded or committed to many projects, but these are just more bullet points we can add to our resume and we need to evaluate if they actually have value to us. These open doors that we think we need to keep open are options not opportunities. Not only do you need to stop looking for so many options, you should be actively closing doors to options that you don't actually value.
Another way to think of this would be, would you stay in a negative friendship even though you were miserable? Would you stay at your job even though you were bored, miserable, or the management was terrible? Sometimes we forget to evaluate what we find value in and what door should probably be closed so that we can be where we want to be. The most common example of this for college students is being over involved in leadership opportunities or projects. Because they kept too many doors open they felt burnt out and didn't have time to do the things they actually value. Keeping too many doors open is less meaningful to you because you can't commit your full effort to any one thing.
Closing doors to things that you don't value helps you dedicate your time and energy to what is most meaningful to you. Options are theoretical, opportunities are real.
You are the one that has to do the heavy lifting.
Your major or your first job won't always be your ticket into a work free ride off into the sunset. You and you alone decide your future, not the job or title you own. Your job won't be doing the heavy lifting for you in providing you money, opportunities, and fulfillment. You have to. You are Me, Inc. and your attitude and actions alone will determine your success.
It is very common to meet those people that want to make a lot of money or want the prestigious title but don't want to do any actual work. In my experience with meeting these people, their attitude and work ethic was failing them in meeting their goals. This was because they hated their classes and learning, they complained anytime they had to do work, and they spent everyday binge watching Netflix wondering why the world wasn't handed to them on a silver plate. I don't really have an answer for people who believe others will do the heavy lifting for them, for some people who do, its most often their parents or their classmates or coworkers. What I would say is this, if you are stuck in a life that makes you unhappy and you don't feel you are where you want to be, GET AFTER IT. Evaluate what isn't working for you and focus on what is.
Make less excuses and make time in the present to focus on the kind of work you want to be doing. The only thing that comes from listing your obstacles is that you get to keep them.
