by Jon Dainty Sr.

Created on: June 23, 2008

The Rules of the Universe

Though your career is yours alone, you share many characteristics with others equally ambitious. In order to make the most of the opportunities that you encounter, you have to prepare yourself thoroughly and wisely. As Dennis Hopper puts it in the television commercial, "Did you think the road to retirement was an expressway?"

Rule One of your new universe is that you can derail your future more easily than anyone else can. For this reason, determine early where you want to be after your first year, second year, and fifth year on the job.

In your first full year of employment, if you are in the proper field for your passion and potential advancement, you will learn why. It may be that you love your profession, or you could discover that you like your job but love the people you can help. Either is sufficient reason to keep doing what you do and to improve your capacity to excel at it.

After two years of employment, your skills, initiative, and engagement should have brought you promotion. If not, this is a good time to re-examine where you are in the company or organizational structure. If your position is good, are you still happy with the people? This is crucial; time is an element of your life that is irreplaceable, and should be used with great care.

Rule Two is something that every adult should know and apply on a daily basis. It is simply that "People are more important than things; things must serve people." This is a distant corollary of the Golden Rule, and if you ever forget it, your career and your life will lose much of their value.

Rule Three brings you to another realization of goal-setting. Not every goal you write on a piece of paper is absolutely within your reach. As a consequence, some of your goals may be only partially achieved by the time you intended. This is not the death knell for you or your career; Rules One and Two continue to apply. You should set goals that are reachable, but you should also prepare yourself to change those whose importance changes during the course of your active life.

Rule Four is that you should examine your personal health, both physical and mental, regularly. Questions you answer should include "Am I still fit for this career?" and "Do I need a vacation, or should I start looking for another position?" Self-examination is a continual, on-going process that will help you to maintain the balance an employer is counting on. Healthy and happy employees can better concentrate on their jobs.

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