What makes a good career?

Or (a less loaded term) a good working life?

That is, what would make YOU look back at your career and say, “that was good”?

Would it be how it all felt, on balance, across the years? Or just about the highs, however defined? 

Would it be everything you visited, saw, tried and learned along the way? Or just about where you ended up, and never mind the rest of it?

Would it be what you did? Or who you did it with. Or for? 

Perhaps your career’s longevity? Or its brevity? 

Its variety? Or its consistency? Its surprises, or its going to plan?

Maybe the contentment of finding things good enough would make it good?

Or perhaps never having been bored? Or always having been driven by desire or frustration or curiosity to do more, see more, make more?

Would it be about its extrinsic rewards and what they enabled for you? Or the intrinsic ones?

Perhaps it would be about what you moved away from, what you turned down, or what you put a stop to?

Or the positive difference that you made in the moment or in many moments? Or about what you made or shaped that remains part of our world?

Would it be the lack of regrets or the presence of satisfactions?

Would it have to be coherent and neat-looking for you to call it ‘good’? Or could it be disparate, fractured, messy?

I recently invited 20 people to look backward (and forward) on their careers from the vantage point of their 50s and 60s, and the fascinating discussions have exposed not only the amazing and often hidden variety of working lives but also the personal nature of what matters within them – the things that have shaped people’s decisions and the things that have made them feel good.

We are led to believe – by something in the water, it seems – that there is an objective definition of a ‘good’ career, and that we can spot one if we see one. How wrong this is. I have many more interviews to do, but this much I already know: your ‘good’ is yours and yours alone.

So, what is your ‘good’? What are your measures, for you and your career – past and future? And how would it look if you stopped now?

Photo: Jon Tyson on Unsplash