Tips for Creating Your Own Occupational Luck
Adapted and inspired from the book Luck is No Accident (John Krumboltz)
1. Open your mind to possibilities! There are no requirements that you determine a specific job for your future. You are welcome to prepare for one and to have goals, but these are subject to changes beyond your control. Keep learning and remain alert to new possibilities.
2. Accidents, unexpected events, and unintended consequences will have an effect on your life. Be ready to take advantage of them when they occur.
3. Your new reality may offer better options than you could have established by yourself. “Stay awake while you are dreaming (John Krumboltz).”
4. Try out different activities to discover what you like and what you do not like.
5. Presume that you will encounter some failures and make mistakes. Failure is not a disaster; it simply offers a chance to learn what works (and what doesn’t.)
6. Generate your own unplanned lucky events: volunteer, join an organization, continue your education and training, talk with people, find time to visit friends, speak with strangers. Embrace life! Celebrate it with an open heart and mind.
7. Unemployed? Practice for retirement now. Use your time wisely and seek the meaning in all that you do. Be helpful to others. Help someone else look for a job. Mentor a young person.
8. Open-mindedness will help you deflate internal fears and self-imposed obstacles. Re-discover your curiosity. Are you creative? Find a way to express that creativity. Are you an organizer at heart? Help someone re-organize their garage or kitchen. Are you entrepreneurial? Help a small company expand its marketing. Whatever your gifts, open yourself to seeing who needs them and go do it.
9. Act on your dreams. Whatever it is, identify a very first step and then take it.
10. You don’t need to have mastered a job to take it. You just need the willingness to learn how to do it. Most people don’t know how to do a job until they do it. Don’t let your lack of knowledge stop you from gaining knowledge.
adapted by
David Harris, MTS, MS
www.FMC3.org
