{"id":5591,"date":"2013-01-08T07:10:11","date_gmt":"2013-01-08T12:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shrinkingcamel\/?p=5591"},"modified":"2015-11-28T23:44:59","modified_gmt":"2015-11-29T04:44:59","slug":"five-life-altering-career-lessons-for-young-professionals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shrinkingcamel\/2013\/01\/08\/five-life-altering-career-lessons-for-young-professionals\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Life-Altering Career Lessons For Young Professionals"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/437\/2013\/01\/microsoft_office_square.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5592\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/437\/2013\/01\/microsoft_office_square.jpg\" alt=\"Businessman Celebrating in Hallway\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\"><\/a>My first entry-level professional job paid enough for a decent apartment with a sofa and TV. As far as I was concerned, this was the good life, and planning for the upcoming weekend was about as far out as I could comprehend.<\/p>\n<p>Lucky for me, I married a brave, visionary woman who was wise and encouraging and saw the greater potential for our future that I couldn\u2019t always see for myself. She believed in me, nudging me along through my doubts and insecurities. (Also, it didn\u2019t hurt that she was studying to become a psychologist.)<\/p>\n<p>In the first fifteen years of our marriage, I progressed from a lowly administrative position to a senior executive. Which only goes to show that we are capable of far more than we think \u2014 but we have to take action to fully realize that potential.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the five most important lessons that helped propel me in those early years, and can have a dramatic effect on your career path, too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Time is going to pass anyway, so you might as well do something worthwhile.<\/strong><br>\nIt sounds so obvious, but in order to think about the future, you must start with the basic acceptance of the passage of time. Whether it\u2019s an MBA or a college diploma, it\u2019s tempting to put off the hard work of building credentials that could improve your career options. What starts as \u201cI can\u2019t because I\u2019m too busy\u201d soon becomes \u201cI can\u2019t because there\u2019s a new baby\u201d or \u201cNow there\u2019s three kids.\u201d You can either put the time in now and benefit for years to come, or regret it later and wonder where all the time went.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehighcalling.org\/articles\/essay\/five-life-altering-career-lessons-young-professionals\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Click here<\/a> to get the other four life-altering career lessons over at The High Calling!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My first entry-level professional job paid enough for a decent apartment with a sofa and TV. As far as I was concerned, this was the good life, and planning for the upcoming weekend was about as far out as I could comprehend. Lucky for me, I married a brave, visionary woman who was wise and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1878,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[121,551],"class_list":["post-5591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-career","tag-career-direction","tag-professional-development"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Five Life-Altering Career Lessons For Young Professionals<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My first entry-level professional job paid enough for a decent apartment with a sofa and TV. As far as I was concerned, this was the good life, and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shrinkingcamel\/2013\/01\/08\/five-life-altering-career-lessons-for-young-professionals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five Life-Altering Career Lessons For Young Professionals\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My first entry-level professional job paid enough for a decent apartment with a sofa and TV. As far as I was concerned, this was the good life, and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shrinkingcamel\/2013\/01\/08\/five-life-altering-career-lessons-for-young-professionals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shrinking the Camel\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-08T12:10:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-11-29T04:44:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/shrinkingcamel\/files\/2013\/01\/microsoft_office_square.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"JBW\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"JBW\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shrinkingcamel\/2013\/01\/08\/five-life-altering-career-lessons-for-young-professionals\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shrinkingcamel\/2013\/01\/08\/five-life-altering-career-lessons-for-young-professionals\/\",\"name\":\"Five Life-Altering Career Lessons For Young Professionals\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shrinkingcamel\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-01-08T12:10:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-11-29T04:44:59+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shrinkingcamel\/#\/schema\/person\/30946d9314ace8109cb1f63f162aa624\"},\"description\":\"My first entry-level professional job paid enough for a decent apartment with a sofa and TV. 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