"...Aim for the limelight
You are not likely to be happy hiding your light under a bushel. You are intensely individualistic, and need to express yourself and be appreciated by those around you. For this reason you should put your energy behind your imaginative and intuitive gifts, and aim high enough to ensure that you can find a place where you can feel, and be seen as, special. This might be in the world of the arts, where your rich imagination could be put to work in many possible channels. Certain spheres of business could attract you if the work requires imagination, ingenuity, creative thinking, and a willingness to speculate or gamble on what is new and innovative. You have a constant fertile flow of ideas which need to be taken seriously, although sometimes you have so many ideas that you need to discriminate and put them to the test in practical terms. The worst thing you could do is take a job where you are bored, uninspired, and expected to fit into a highly structured institution or hierarchical company setup...

"...Your life is what you make of it
You are the sort of person who, when faced with a tight job market and poor economic conditions, simply thinks of something original and creates his or her own path into the future. You are a true adventurer, with a self-sufficient nature and a dislike of being obligated to anyone. You want to make your own way in life, and the tougher the challenge, the better. You may not be flamboyant about your love of independence; but whether you are introverted or put everything in the shop window for all to see, you love the feeling that you have encountered a hard obstacle and turned it into an opportunity. If you have tried to "fit in" to more collective working environments in large companies or institutions, you have probably met with many difficulties. You are not really suited to this kind of co-operative work situation. You can be fair and generous in your attitude toward colleagues, but it is difficult for you to conform, and even more difficult for you to accept a structure or work ideology imposed on you by others..."

"...Determination to succeed through your own efforts
You also have a lot of courage, and might do well to seek areas of work where you have to face difficult challenges or stiff competition. A good battle gets your adrenaline going and you don't enjoy winning too easily; you want an opponent who will do you honour by equalling your own abilities and strength. You probably enjoy independent projects, where you can come up with an idea, follow it through according to your own design, and present the results after having had to work hard to achieve them. Interference from others can rouse you to great anger, for you believe you know the right way to do things and do not tolerate anyone breathing down your neck when you are working. Make sure you find a place where you can have this kind of independence, and where your mind is challenged. If you are a more physical sort of person, competitive sport might suit you; if you are a more intellectual type, debate might also suit you. To get the best from your high levels of energy and determination, you need a fitting opponent, whether this is a group, an ideology, or an individual in the work place who has wronged you or others, or whose stupidity has caused problems. Try to avoid putting yourself in a position where your work gives you no stimulation and no challenge. Best of all, create independence in your working life. Many people fear the instability of being self-employed, but it is probable that you would thrive on the challenge..."

"...The spirit of the lone adventurer
You have a very adventurous spirit which is attracted to difficult challenges - especially those which you must meet on your own, through drawing on your individual resources and abilities. You can be quite ferociously independent, and you may experience some conflict with authority if you work within a large organisation - unless you are running it yourself. But even such a position of dominance may feel limiting because you would still have to deal with employees and with the "red tape" of bureaucracy. You want to be out on the mountain peaks fighting the elements alone, metaphorically if not literally. If you are a physical type, you might enjoy living this adventurous spirit out through sport or athletics, especially those challenges which require you to battle the elements. If you are more introverted, you still need to engage in battles with what you deem to be inimical to your values and ideals. You need an independent profession in which you can choose the size and frequency of those battles, and gain in confidence each time you feel you have won...

"...Born to lead, not to follow
You are quite able to recognise excellence in others and admire or even try to copy it. But you are intolerant of anyone attempting to tell you what to do, especially if you have little respect for that person or sense that the surface of authority masks a mean or hypocritical spirit beneath. You like to go your own way and muster your own crusade, and you do not really mind if there is no train of followers behind you. It is the challenge that exhilarates you, and the stimulating sense of creative power when you have to initiate something from your own creative resources..."

"...You can't achieve everything by yourself
Your chief limitation, in terms of work, arises from your greatest strength: your insistence on doing everything yourself. Your independence is a positive attribute which gives you the capacity to go it alone and create the kind of working life you wish. It also allows you to work at projects with the minimum of help and advice, and this makes you able to take the initiative and assume considerable authority in your work. But you may sometimes be too proud to accept help when it is offered, and may make things harder for yourself than is necessary. Others' generosity does not always carry a price tag, and you may need to remember that there will always be times when you must turn to others for support or advice or expertise in order to further your own goals. Your insistence on autonomy can also make it hard for you to delegate work if you have employees; you may feel, deep down, that no one can do it as well as you yourself can, and you could deprive others of the chance not only to develop their own abilities but also to help you. Pride can sometimes be a virtue, but it can also be a real handicap if it gets in the way of common sense and the capacity to relate to other humans in your working life..."

"...Needing to be in charge
You can be a stalwart support to colleagues who need your help and advice, and you are always willing to take on difficult tasks on behalf of those who are unable to do this themselves. Your working relationships are therefore likely to be mainly a "one- way street", because all the giving is on your side, and all the taking is done by others. In some ways this suits you, because you don't like to feel dependent, and prefer to make your own decisions and accept the consequences of your own mistakes as well as the rewards of your own successes. However, there may be times when this role becomes somewhat burdensome and you long for greater equality between you and your colleagues and co-workers. Yet this equality may be hard to create once you have established a pattern of being the "strong" one who doesn't need others' help. Your pride may make it difficult for you to let others know you are sometimes indecisive and unsure, and your determination to remain without obligations can make other resentful that they cannot offer support themselves. Over time, you may find yourself trapped in a pattern which you yourself have created, but which you may find very hard to undo..."

"...What Success Really Means to You
For you, success cannot really be measured in material terms. You feel most alive, and know that your life has a sense of meaning and purpose, only if you are pursuing your quest for a more inclusive world-view, and if you are sharing what you discover with others who, like yourself, are on a similar path. You have a natural propensity to see life as a journey and to understand your experiences as sources of learning and growth; and this is an intuitive and instinctive mode of perception - it is not dependent on any special philosophy or religious or spiritual perspective. At heart you are not only a perennial student, but also an educator - not of facts and disconnected pieces of information, but in the sense that Plato meant the term. The Latin word educare means "to lead forth", and education in this deeper sense is about inspiring a vision of order and meaning through discovering the connections between different systems of knowledge. Your tendency to see life as a quest may mean that traditional educational structures could leave you feeling dissatisfied, as though some essential knowledge has been left out. Although you would benefit from the best education possible, you will probably discover your own truths through your own learning process. Your mind is inquiring and restless, and you are likely to outgrow whatever values, beliefs and perceptions you acquired from your family and national background..."

Extracts from: CAREER AND VOCATION, by Liz Greene
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