Posted on: Monday, July 5, 2004

AT WORK
Change of careers requires high-achiever attitude

By Andrea Kay
Gannett News Service

If you are bound and determined to live up to your full potential and if changing careers is the way to do it, be prepared to become a high achiever. This is someone who won't settle for less, pushes the limits and is driven by goals that others think aren't attainable.

This is different from someone who is an achiever. An achiever wants to "make things happen," says John R. Noe,

author of "Peak Performance Principles For High Achievers." This person sets goals that require a lot of effort and persistence to reach and is self-motivated and self-directed.

But high achievers are "constantly stretching their minds, wills and bodies to surpass their limitations," he says. They set high goals — ones that are so far beyond their grasp they must have help to reach them. Their goals are personal — something they want for their own reasons — and timely at that point in their life.

You will need to be a high achiever to change careers because a lot of people will think what you're trying to do isn't doable. You'll run into obstacles and you'll have to sacrifice something — maybe a lot.

If you're wondering whether you have what it takes to be a high achiever in order to make a career change or achieve another "high goal," here are some of the questions that

Noe says you need to consider:

• What are you willing to invest?

The energy, time and effort to be a high achiever are enormous. When people tell me they want to make a career change, they often ask: "How long will this take?"

My answer is always the same: "As long as it takes."

It's not that you don't have the right to ask, but to have what it takes to become a high achiever, says Noe, you must answer the question "What are you willing to invest?" with: "I am willing to invest whatever it takes."

• How much are you willing to endure?

Adversity will dog your every step, he says. "Those who have what it takes to become high achievers learn to endure whatever difficulties they encounter, and they transform difficulties into opportunities." So to this question, the high achiever replies: "Whatever I must endure!"

• What are you willing to give up?

You may need to give up things that cost you more money than you can afford while going back to school or doing an internship — whatever it is that will help you reach your long-term career goal.

• Are you willing to start where you are?

You can always get where you want to go, says Noe, provided you're willing to start from where you are.

High goals can be reached. But in the process, high achievers don't focus on what they have done, but what they are becoming. That's because what's really great, as Noe puts it, is the "constant joy of achieving progressively higher intermediate goals in the daily experience of preparation." Not to mention that while you're doing that, you are living up to your full potential.

Career consultant Andrea Kay is the author of several books on landing a job. She can be e-mailed at: andrea@andreakay.com.