Take ten minutes to picture yourself living the Walter Mitty Life Design Model for Serial Specialists. What would be great about it? What would it be missing for you?
Now do the same, for ten minutes, with one of the Umbrella Careers for Serial Specialists:
- Writer
- Teacher
- Historian
- Public Speaker
- Troubleshooter
- Information broker
- Journalist
- Researcher
- Librarian
- Personal Assistant
- Foundation officer
- Your own business
- Consultant
- Business skills
If you are an unsatisfied Serial Specialist, create a Backward Planning Flowchart for moving toward one of these careers.
Write in your Daybook how each of these felt and what great ideas came up while you were daydreaming about them. In a new comment on this page, tell us which ones you tried on and what you discovered about them and about yourself. After you share your experience, read the rest of the comments and reply to a few. Who are the Serial Specialists in this group?
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Use the Next link (up above the title) to continue on to What I Learned from Chapter 14 after you are done adding your comments.
I don’t see any reason I can’t live the Walter Mitty Life Design Model.
Of the others, boutique business owner is the only one to which I’m currently drawn.
Although I’m not a serial specialist, I’ve worked as a writer, researcher and historian in the past, although I found these careers hard to sustain financially. Twelve years ago I entered into a career in government policy, which includes research, writing and learning about new topics and issues on a constant basis. Being primarily a Sybil (at least, I’m pretty sure I am), I still lived in constant frustration and with a sense of missing out, until I realised a few years ago that this is a pretty perfect money-making job for me, as it keeps me satisfied and uses some of my favourite skills. Also, practically every big corporation, every government department and most non-government organisations need people with my skills, so I can change employers when I need to refresh the context in which I’m working. I try to squeeze my true passions into my free time, but it’s not easy to do. I’d ideally like to start working at the same career part-time in future to allow me to do so, although part time jobs are not common in this field. Also, I need to clarify exactly what else I want to focus on before going part time, as I can see myself getting lost in my free time!
I wonder if Barbara would encourage you to figure out part-time and to trust you would figure out what to do with free times.