Happy New Year! 2015 has dawned crisp and clear, with possibility of adventure and an outlook of hope. We wish you much happiness this year and challenge you to make it your best year yet!
This week we wrapped up our Winter Writing Workshop with the question ‘How does it feel to call yourself a writer?’ Sometimes giving yourself a label – even if it doesn’t quite fit yet – can be a really powerful way of helping you believe in yourself, whether that means calling yourself a writer, an artist, an athlete or whatever.
Passion labels can be motivating and confidence-inspiring. But career labels can be dangerous. Here’s why.
We are given labels all our working lives in the form of job titles. Of course these can be helpful for others to understand what we do, and how we fit within an organisation, but when they start to define us, they become more of a hindrance than a help.
So many people start their search for doing what they love with the idea of putting a label on the thing they want to ‘do’, but that immediately restricts their options to things they can name, or know about. In this rapidly changing world there are careers and opportunities we could not have dreamt of even 10 years ago, and often you don’t know they exist until you meet the person doing them.
So by all means give yourself a label when describing your role in terms of your passion, but when thinking about your future, try to remove the career labels and see how different you feel.
You are not your job. You are a complex individual with layers of skills, experience, connections, hopes and dreams, with much to bring to the table. Instead of starting with what career label you want to pursue, start thinking about what you would like the day-to-day experience inside your life to be.
Do that, and everything shifts.
We look forward to travelling the weeks and months ahead with you on a path to doing what you love.
Beth and team
