Emotional Intelligence

Chapter 11EI and job titles

There is speculation that some of the professions that students are studying at school and university will not exist by the time they have achieved their qualifications.

It is common for students to define their future, and measure their success, based on joining a specific profession or achieving a certain job title or pay packet. This becomes a part of the beliefs and values embedded in our subconscious mind as students, guiding many of the decisions that we make through life to build our self‐worth, confidence and sense of achievement and purpose.

Due to technology moving at such a rapid pace, industries and jobs are changing at an incredible speed, creating not only uncertainty for students but also for working adults. We find ourselves questioning our definition of ‘success’ and whether we can actually achieve it if the profession that we studied or have been working in no longer exists.

The rapid development of technology not only impacts every industry and many job titles, but also our embedded beliefs and preconceptions of our purpose, and even for some, our self‐worth.

Why do we ask teenagers what they are going to be when they leave school? We ask it when we are young and sometimes still ask it of ourselves as adults — What we are going to be when we grow up? — and feel like a failure if we don't achieve that ‘statement job’. Although our intentions are well‐meaning, this loaded question places the focus on what we should become. Perhaps ...