Stairway to Success: The Complete Blueprint for Personal and Professional Achievement

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WHAT DO YOUENJOY DOING?

The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world’s need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this—with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need—this life is hell.

—W. E. B. DU BOIS

Your opportunities for success will be brighter if you pursue a career that makes the best use of your talents and provides you with personal satisfaction.

That’s where the second question comes into play: What do you enjoy doing? Answering that question will help you identify:

• your congenial competencies
• your compatible careers
• your congenial roles

Let me explain what I mean. A congenial competency is an activity that allows you to use your best talents in an enjoyable and satisfying way. A compatible career is a line of work that allows you to use your congenial competencies in a profitable way. A congenial role is a position within a compatible career that lets you follow your preferred behavior pattern and disposition most of the time.

To illustrate: You may have a talent for drawing things, and you enjoy making sketches and filling in the details. This is a congenial competency. Your talents can be profitably applied in fields such as architecture, commercial graphics, and cartooning. These are compatible careers. You enjoy interacting with people and being a part of the commercial process, so you decide to become a commercial artist. This is a ...