Career Adaptive Evolution

Change. It never comes easy. Especially when it comes to our careers. According to evolutionists (via Wikipeida), adaptation is the evolutionary process whereby a population becomes better suited to its habitat. This is primarily explained by another popular theory called natural selection in which a species adapts to its changing environment in order to survive. "Survival of the fittest."
What happens when our life environment changes and our career requires adaptation? How can we become better suited to our environment in order to survive?

I am finding out. Recently, I quit my job of (almost) five years as a sports information director to spend more time with my family. We had moved my elderly parents from Wisconsin to Montana almost a year ago as they were at that stage where they needed help and they needed to be around family. That was the right thing to do for all of us. What I didn't realize at the time, was how much time that would require.

Shortly after they got here, we had to put my mom in a nursing home as my dad was exhausted with her care. Shortly after that, he landed in the hospital with bronchitis and depression. It was at that intersection I realized that my 60-70 hour/week job as an SID was going to have to go. I tried making it work for over a year, but I knew I needed a change before I ended up in the hospital too.

I was perplexed. We had uprooted our family for my job, and frankly, I really liked my job. I planned to retire in that job. What to do?

Adaptive evolution. First, I decided that a 40-hour/week job could be doable. Without events 3-4 nights a week, I would have plenty of time to breathe.  So, I am keeping an eye on the classifieds, but only for something that really fits my strengths and skills.

In the meantime, I made a list of all the activities from my job I loved and set out to create a career for myself that allowed me to keep as many of them as I could, but still gave me the flexibility to take care of my parents. Consulting in communications and new media is a good fit for me--natural selection--adapting to my environment. So far, I have facilitated one local workshop on social media and am developing a comprehensive Facebook workshop for December. In the meantime, I got a call from a friend who is doing a job search and wanted some coaching. Doors open and I walk through.

Upside: now I have more time to research for blogging and developing workshops. I hope to take those workshops on the road to university athletic departments, communications departments, businesses, organizations, and whoever will have me.

Career evolution. Life throws stuff at you. Are you ready for adaptive evolution? Have you got a story to tell? I'd like to hear it.

Image from flickr by curiousart