Career success is no longer seen as just working steadily in one area or job and reaching the top of your niche. More and more people are discovering that a long-term plan of periodic change is the most desirable way to work and earn money. In fact, a growing number of successful people are actually removing themselves from the workplace via telecommuting and spending time on personal goals and pursuits. Others are setting up automated streams of revenue to fund avocational goals like travel and volunteer work. This new vision of career and success is based on a new way of thinking about how to live life.
The traditional model of 40 years of devoted service to a company, followed by retirement is being upset by the massive failures of big corporations and their retirement plans. Workers cannot rely on pension benefits and health insurance being available to them when they retire. We live longer lives, thanks to advances in health care and preventative medicine. This is causing a shift in thinking about the meaning of retirement. Knowing that you will live more than a few years after the retirement age dictated by company policies means you must think about how you will spend your time in and out of work for the rest of your life.
If total retirement is not an option for you, start thinking about periodic planned breaks from working, or mini-retirements. You can begin by figuring out how much you need your life to be the same, and how much you need it to be different. Some people need a change every 18 months, others want a decade or more of continuity to feel happy. Once you know your sameness/difference strategy, begin planning for your first (or next) mini-retirement.
Be willing to examine new ideas for paying for your new lifestyle. You may want to start exploring the possibility of creating a business that provides you income without daily management. Absentee ownership of business is not a new concept, but the explosive growth of the Internet has created many new ways of receiving income that are totally automated. Do your research and find out if there is a simple yet doable way for you to fund your life without being committed to long hours of work every day.
The more you decide to courageously explore your possibilities and question your assumptions about what you must do, the more you can become successful in your career and your life.
