Sports, Jobs, and Play

People like to play.  As a child, it’s a pretend world with figurines as the child explores human/inanimate interaction.  It’s a healthy human growth sign to see a child learn to play with a ball.  They teach themselves timing, physics, and safety: what you can and can not do to avoid painful consequences.  As they grow older, swimming/music/education lessons teach them what is not obvious but essential to live in this world, Play can continue throughout a person’s life and can often define their life.

But how does one get a job playing?  One, you need some expertise learned from your play.  Let’s look at some of the many ways that opportunities in life can present themselves without your realizing it:

1. You joined a club sport or league after graduation.
2. You transitioned from a school team to a weekend warrior.
3. You realized the importance of staying healthy and in shape with new casual sports like jogging or swimming.
4. You learned the road back from being out-of-shape to maintaining a healthy lifestyle that includes sport and maybe coaching.
5. You found a volunteer position in coaching/refereeing putting the lessons learned to good use.
6. Your focus and goals opened a whole vista of sports to the professional and/or Olympic levels to explore and you see a path forward to achieve success in Athletic Management.
7. You became involved in school or sport’s Hall of Fame.
8. You conducted fundraising for local community sports and beyond such as building stadiums which involves politics while remaining apolitical (politically agnostic).
9. You organized community events (meets/dinners/awards) for a particular sport.
10. You discovered socializing after games (playing on a company team) can lead to career advancement.
11. You wrote a book about your knowledge and experience of sports.
12. You learned strategies for recovering from sports injuries.

Transitioning from playing to a job requires experience and credentials.  This path of learning may be harder than just playing a game, but it has rules where your determination can make a difference.  If you considered your mind as a muscle, how often would you train it and work out to achieve your goals?

To help you learn these ropes which you can climb, I have developed a program called “Six Step to a Paycheck” in my book: Finding a  Job in Tough Times.  Visit www.findingajob.net for more information about this reflective workbook.