For much of our early lives, growth occurs without a lot of prior planning. We physically grow through adolescence, and many of us experience our student years as a time when growth from one level to another is already pre-structured, from grade to grade or subject to subject.
Professional growth, however, is radically different. There often isn’t a clear roadmap. Growth is often extremely dependent on our own initiative and choices. In my first “real” round of interviewing, shortly before graduating with my Master’s in EE, a visit to a company took an unexpected turn. I was expecting an entry-level job offer as a design engineer. Instead, an executive at the company pitched that they were about to launch a new R&D project, hire over a dozen new engineers, and that perhaps I would be the one to put the department together and oversee the team.
I wasn’t ready for that kind of professional growth. Frankly, even the idea of taking on that much responsibility terrified me. I cut the interview short, and basically ran away.
My professional path has been a journey from engineering to an educational startup to software project management to pastoring and non-profit executive management. Along the way, here are some key things I’ve learned that professional growth requires:
- A unique kind of faith. Professional growth depends on faith in yourself or someone else’s faith in you, and ideally both. If you don’t believe that you are ready for a next step of professional challenge, you won’t embrace the opportunity when it arrives. In many instances, the faith we have in ourselves comes from a mentor, supervisor, or other trusted figure who helps to plant that faith in our lives. Cultivating and treasuring the relationships we have that increase our faith in ourselves is vital. Who do you have in your life that helps you believe in yourself?
- A motivated vision. When I fled from the idea of leading an engineering department right out of college, it was mostly because I wasn’t even imagining that role. And, looking back, I hadn’t invested the time or desire in my engineering future to cultivate that kind of vision for myself. Ultimately, my lack of preparation was a revelatory and helpful insight; my passion wasn’t sufficiently in engineering to spend time dreaming about my future in that profession, and if my vision was going to be limited and small, pursuing a profession in that direction was the wrong choice.
Vision lays the groundwork for professional growth. What do you care so much about that your time, passion, and dreams are naturally invested in that pursuit?
- A willingness to be brave. Professional growth often requires courage and risking failure, especially when adding new responsibilities or accepting a role with greater visibility. The best source of courage comes from something greater than ourselves. When our courage is only based on our self-belief and bravado, we set ourselves up for painful crises when we encounter failure, because our whole identity can be wrapped up in our professional growth. But, if our freedom to be brave comes because our identity and security are rooted in something larger than ourselves, we can be brave without risking existential despair if we encounter failure. Where does your courage come from?
The drivers of professional growth are the same drivers of spiritual and emotional growth.
In both realms, we often find ourselves needing to make very personal choices that may look different from the choices that those around us are making, and ultimately, to forge our own paths forward.
As a Christian pastor, the bedrock source of faith, vision, and courage in my own life comes from my conviction that God is love, and that God delights in imparting unconditional and limitless grace and forgiveness in our lives as we open our hearts to God’s love and find our identity in being God’s beloved. It’s no coincidence that at the start of Jesus’ ministry (his season of professional growth!), he heard the blessing of God at his baptism: “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This word of faith and blessing allowed Jesus to have a motivated vision for his own ministry, which translated to courageous faithfulness and redemptive love for the world.
Jesus’ life shows us the basic ingredients that will support our professional, spiritual, and emotional growth - faith, vision, and courage.
May we too experience healthy, supportive relationships that cultivate our faith, develop a motivated vision for how our lives can make a difference in this world, and act courageously to pursue our dreams.
.svg)
