How do you keep to your guiding principles?

November 20, 2006 · Filed Under For the love of HR 

I don’t know about some of you but whenever I started getting into HR, I did so with a lot of lofty goals and guiding principles in mind.  Making genuine contacts, helping people get into the right career (whether it was with me or someone else) and continually educating and improving myself.  I think we all do this, regardless of the career we choose.  Then…

Well, then life happens.  Not only do you have expectations, goals, deadlines, reports and all these work hassles (I say that with kindness of course), you have REAL life as well.  Some of us do at least.  The ones that get out from behind the computer once in a while.

You lose sight of those guiding principles, the ones that actually mean something.  The ones that give fullness to your career.

Last week, I had the pleasure of making real contact with a colleague.  And while I do value making contact through the internet with people, nothing quite connects like a jabber box (a.k.a. the telephone).  I spoke with Ami from Recruitomatic a bit about offshoring and a bit more about my blog and HR on the front lines.  It was a ten minute conversation but it was more than what we could have done over several hours of emailing.  That’s what I like about the telephone.

Which brings me to the point that the conversation reminded me to post about.  My blog is about keeping connected with my guiding principles. It isn’t a substitute for it but it is part of it.  It serves as an outlet and it serves as a reminder.  Whenever I called Ami, it reminded me that I wanted to make contact with several other people just to see how they were doing. Old job seekers that I had helped in the past that I couldn’t place with us but who otherwise were great people. One had found a job and one hadn’t and it reminded me that someone I knew was looking for somebody with this person’s qualifications.  They have an interview this week together and I was pleased at that result (especially when, at this time of year, it is obnoxiously difficult to talk to people about switching careers. 

The point of this isn’t to pat myself on the back, it is to demonstrate the way I remind myself to stay committed to those principles.  How do you keep yourself focused on the overall goal of your career (possibly your life)? How do you not keep from being bogged down by work and start getting excited about fufilling a purpose you have laid out for yourself? 

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