Today we include an article provided by Lisa G. Jacobson, SPHR, an HR and Career Consulting expert from Workplace Solutions (soon to be CareerEquation) entitled “Finding your Professional Voice – A Critical First Step in Career Introspection.”
Have you ever cried while reading a short story or novel? Words have a powerful impact. Words we hear, read, and express describing ordinary things affect us. For example, try this exercise created by Alex Linley, a positive psychologist based in the UK. Take a moment to reflect on the emotions you feel while reading the following list of words:
PAINFUL – HOPELESS – ASSAULT – LOSS – WEAKNESS – DEATH – BETRAYAL
Now contrast those emotions with how you feel while reading this list of words:
ELATION – JOY – LOVE – DELIGHT – PLEASURE – STRONG – ENERGETIC – ALIVE
They are simply words, but they have a strong influence over us. The same is true in our professional lives. Words, particularly how we describe ourselves are the means in which we communicate who we are and what we are about. For this reason, finding your professional voice is a critical step towards reaching your career goals.
This best way to go about finding this voice is to begin at a fundamental level. Discover your character strengths. By character strengths, I am referring to innate qualities one inherits, and develops environmentally in the formative years. Strengths are categorized into clusters of virtues. They have served humans well, as they are the very characteristics we credit as survival mechanisms. The clusters are:
- Interpersonal : humor, kindness, leadership, love, social intelligence, teamwork
- Fortitude/will : bravery, honesty, judgment, perseverance, perspective, self-regulation
- Intellectual : appreciation of beauty, creativity, curiosity, love of learning
- Transcendence : gratitude, hope, religiousness, zest
- Temperance: fairness, forgiveness, modesty, prudence
A simple approach to discovering one’s character strengths is to take an assessment from the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center for Research, the VIA Character Strengths Questionnaire. In a half hour, individuals discover their Signature Strengths. My early and second career clients use these results as a means to discover and create their professional voice. Ultimately, we discuss the results of the assessment that resonate and begin to create an eloquent personal statement used during interviews and in cover letters. We also use the results to formulate a succinct “60 Second Informercial” for on-the-spot networking purposes.
Bottom Line: Language breathes life into career goals. Discover your strengths and find your professional voice.
Lisa Jacobson
CareerEQuation Copyright 2008 (used with author’s permission on the Physician Renaissance Network website)
www.workplacesolutionstampa.com
Also, for an interesting article on Positive Psychology, read this article by Martin E. P. Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
