Certification – Which certifications to pick – Passion
- At June 05, 2008
- By Josh More
- In Business Security
- 0
We are exploring key considerations for when you are choosing a certification. Today’s consideration is Passion.
As with many things in life, success comes down to passion. If you are a salaried worker, you are likely expected to work 40 hours a week. If you ONLY work 40 hours, that means that you are doing the MINIMUM expected of you. That’s not exactly the quick path to success. Thus, if you want to succeed, you have to be passionate enough about what you are doing to put in 50 hours and have it feel like 30. If you’re really passionate, you can put in 60 hours and have it feel like 20.
This works the same if you are hourly. An hourly employee is expected to get a certain amount of work done in a hour. Thus, your minimum is to do X work for $Y in compensation. If that’s all you do, then you are again meeting the MINIMUM expected of you. To succeed in this model, you have to figure out what X work is, and try to do 2X work in each hour. The only way to work this hard on a consistent basis is to be passionate about that you’re doing.
In most cases, when you start on a certification path, you will not be able to stop your day job. Thus, in either model, you have to do more than the minimum amount of work AND spend the time to learn and prepare for the certification. This is HARD. The only thing that can help is to really WANT it… really badly.
This is where passion comes in. If you are pursuing a new lover, you will throw caution to the winds and devote all your resources towards being with that person. If you are training for a marathon, you will spend many months getting into shape, constantly keeping your goal in mind. Similarly, if you want to get ahead professionally, you have to approach the project with that level of passion. Pick what you like BEST about your job. Pick something that you can eat, breathe and sleep for months. Only when you are at that point and level of interest can you have a strong likelihood of success.
If you have that level of passion, you will get closer to your goal on willpower alone. Sure, you need other things like a rational plan, a schedule, and the support of your friends and family… but if you approach with ONLY conservative rationality, your journey will take so long that you may not even complete it. The passion will be your guide to your goal. The practicality will be the tools that you need to blaze your trail.
So, choose what you are the most passionate about. If you do not, you will likely not have the desire to complete the certification journey.