Today, we’re going to dive in and explore how you’ve likely been tricked into following a path you’ve been told is “safe”, and why this safety is illusory.

Let’s go!

How To Turn The Dial On Your Career Kaleidoscope

Specialization is dead.

You’ve been duped.

Chances are that your parents and well-meaning people in your life misled you into believing that the path to success in your career was to pick a domain of specialization, become an expert in it, and then work your way up the ladder in that field. As you climbed your way up the corporate ladder, you’d get paid more, have more people reporting to you, and a more important-sounding title. What rung of the ladder you were on was a signal, both to the world and to yourself, how successful you were.

This outdated view of the working world is likely holding you back. The world simply doesn’t work that way anymore.

It’s time to shake up your perspective of your career and focus on “going wide” instead of just “going deep”.

The Traditional Path of Specialization

As you were coming up through high school, you were conditioned to believe that specialization was the key to success. You needed to pick a path, deciding “what you wanted to be when you grew up”. This decision would then help you determine what field to study as you embarked on your post-secondary education. The problem is that at that point in your life, you were young and immature. Your real world experience was limited. You had not yet formed a clear understanding of who you actually were as a person.

You likely chose a domain of study based on some combination of:

what your interests were
what you thought might earn a lot of money
what people in your environment told you was worth studying
what “experts” said was going to be a “hot field” with lots of demand
what your parents wanted you to study

You were basing your decision based on very incomplete information, not understanding what it would actually mean to work in that domain.

Based on this decision, which was made on quite incomplete information, you then invested many thousands of dollars and years of your life in post-secondary education, working hard to get your degree. You graduated and then joined the workforce. If you were lucky, you landed a decent job in your field.

It was at that point gained insights into what it meant to work in your field. You likely worked hard, and over time, developed real-world skills and had some success. If luck was on your side, maybe you enjoy working in the field you started in.

But what if you weren’t lucky? What if you couldn’t get a job in your field, or found that the work you thought you’d love isn’t what you expected it to be? Or what if you enjoyed it for a while, but found that you’ve changed so much over time that you’re not enjoying it anymore? Even worse – what if a new technology or innovation suddenly disrupted the industry you were so engaged in, leaving you questioning your future prospects?

Enter the problems of specialization.

The Problems with Specialization

This old-school approach to your career has several significant drawbacks:

It can leave you feeling “boxed in”. You may feel limited in what options you think are open to you, believing you need to stick within the boundaries of your field in order to be successful. If you are no longer happy with your work, this can decimate the level of satisfaction you get from your work.
It’s risky. I’m sure you’ve heard the adage about the dangers of “putting all your eggs in one basket”. The more specialized you are in a particular industry, the more open your work is to disruption through innovation and technology. Career paths used to be linear and somewhat predictable, but those days are long behind us.
Sunk-costs. When you’ve invested years of your life and many thousands of dollars developing expertise in a domain, you’re extremely likely to want to avoid stepping out into something new, as you’d feel you’d be losing ground.
Competition. Competition for work now happens on a global scale. It has become extremely difficult to become “one of the best” in a particular field of work, as the number of people you need to compete with has mushroomed. You’re no longer just competing against people in your region.

Given these challenges, what might you do?

Embrace the Contrarian Path: Going Wide

Instead of following the well-beaten path of specialization, consider going wide. This means developing a diverse, maybe even eclectic, range of skills and knowledge, which positions you to work in a variety of roles and industries. Here are a few principles to keep in mind as you try this contrarian approach:

Become a “category of one”. By combining your unique interests and skills, you can create a niche that sets you apart from others. This unique blend of abilities makes you a “category of one,” where your distinct combination of life experience, skills, and interests becomes your competitive advantage.
Follow your curiosity. Engage in working on what captures your attention. It can be something you love to do, solving a problem that pisses you off, or just something you’ve wondered about. People get caught up in trying to figure out how to monetize things too quickly, rather than just engaging in following your curiosity. Let your curiosity will guide you, trusting that it will lead you towards future opportunities.
Be willing to suck. When you try something new, you will not be very good at it. This might be a genuine struggle if you’ve already had some success in your career already, as colleagues and people in your life will wonder what the hell you are doing. You’ll feel like an amateur, and need to be okay with failing in public.
Embrace continuous learning. If you’re going to venture into the unknown, you’re going to have to learn. Too many people think that once they’ve got their degree, they’re an expert. Think of life as one continuous experiment, where you keep trying fresh stuff out, and seeing what works. Keep the stuff that works and throw out the rest.
Diversify your experiences. You can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting to learn something new or venture in a different direction. Take on projects outside your usual scope of work. Volunteer for cross-functional teams, freelance in different industries, or start a side hustle that aligns with your interests. Just do something different, preferably something that will make people raise their eyebrows.
Be adaptable. Don’t make the mistake of trying to pre-plan your way forward. Going wide means you’ll need to sample all kinds of new things, and some of them just won’t be for you. Reflect regularly on your progress, paying attention to how you feel when you’re doing certain types of work. Keep adjusting based on how things make you feel.
Lean into what scares you. Don’t forget that excitement and nervousness feel the same, so if you find yourself a bit worried about what might happen, it’s likely worth exploring.

Keep these in mind as you venture off the traditional path and explore areas you may find interesting and fun.

Conclusion

The working world has moved on from the traditional path of deep specialization and remaining in a company or industry for your entire career. We are entering another renaissance, this one digital. The reward structures are changing, industries are being upended, and you can no longer rely on your past successes carrying you forward into the future.

Everything is changing quickly, and you’ll need to keep reinventing yourself and what your work is if you are to be successful over the long haul.

While this pace of change and the instability in the world of work might seem scary, it is actually a wonderful opportunity for those who will keep experimenting, learning, and adapting.

Make sure you’re one of those people.

Quotation that I’ve been pondering

I love this insight from the writer and quasi-philosopher Alan Watts;

“This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”

Far too many people are in a toxic relationship with their work. If only you realized that it’s possible to transform your work into play, society could be so much farther along. You can accomplish incredible feats when you’re fully engaged, using your creativity to problem-solve, and having fun doing it.

Journal prompt

What project would I love to undertake, but haven’t yet because I worry about what people might think?
What is a small step that I can take on this project just to see how it feels?

Your call to adventure

Rather than anxiously waiting for your next vacation, make work something that works for you. Regardless of where you’re at, you can radically reinvent the role work plays in your life.

I’ve discovered that I’m good at helping people do just that, and I’d love for you to have the experience of looking forward to your work rather than dreading it.

Think you’re ready for that type of relationship with your work? Most people aren’t.

I can help you get there.

Career Strategy Call