How many of folks in engineering fields second guess themselves? I don’t think there’s a statistic on this question. In fact, it’s probably rhetorical. Perhaps I should ask the question another way: How many of folks in engineering beat themselves up because they are caught in the middle of sales and management chaos and feel they are not successful? WHO IS DEFINING SUCCESS FOR YOU????
Here is your assignment for the weekend: think of all the ways you are remarkable. Start with being able to get up each morning and breathe. No kidding. And being able to think. No kidding either. There is absolutely nothing ordinary about either of these two abilities.
Think about all the things you HAVE to do each day and those which you can CHOOSE to do each day in terms of your role as an engineer. You still get to make these choices. Remarkable. So you aren’t a rock star engineer. Like who ever set that as a personal goal anyway? And besides, you never know to whom you already are a rock star engineer. Perhaps you just need to tell them.
The point is, in any complex social or biological structure, like a bee hive or even within a methycillin-resistant staph film, there are individuals with certain skills who simply have to execute. Without them, the whole structure fails. Are drone bees really concerned whether they are rock stars? They get it. They also don’t have Twitter. The difference is that in these complex biological structures, everyone appreciates everyone else. In their own way.
IT’S UP TO YOU TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IT IS THAT IS ESSENTIAL TO THE VIABILITY OF YOUR ENGINEERING WHOLE…even if your interpretation of what you do is, well, something that’s unimportant. Think again.
If you are in a certain environment that is toxic, you will not thrive. GET OUT OF THERE THE NEXT CHANCE YOU CAN. I’m not telling you something you don’t already know. And I’m not giving you permission to get out. Only you can.
There are plenty of companies out there who need engineers with ordinary skills sets who understand the importance of performing them remarkably, efficiently, time and again. It’s not boring. It’s valuable. It’s remarkable. It’s engineering.
Yes, there are certain individuals who work for engineering-intensive companies who are out to be flashy and have a short-term strategy for plowing through life. Perhaps that is their recipe for success but it doesn’t have to be yours. And probably isn’t anyway. Ask yourself: are these folks really successful?
LET’S GET BACK TO THE BASICS. If you think there is anything ordinary about engineering, you are crazy. You know the phrase “If it’s so easy to be an engineer, everybody would be doing it.” Well guess what: there are a whole lot of engineering specialties and not a lot of engineers. BECAUSE IT IS VERY HARD TO LEARN ENGINEERING AND DO IT WELL.
So learn how to take what you do and do it better. I know you don’t bore yourself. You don’t consider what you do as being “ordinary.” Add other skill sets to what you already know as an engineer and can do in your sleep. And do “ordinary” engineering even more “extraordinarily” than you’ve been doing it all along.
DID ANYONE EVER TELL YOU THAT YOU ALREADY ARE REMARKABLE?
CONSIDER YOURSELF TOLD.
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