As we progress through our professional lives, we all strive to grow and become the best we can.  For some that means management, aspiring to executive positions or business ownership 

To others that means becoming a loyal, valuable employee makes the best decisions possible and brings value to the company they work for.  No matter what your goals, one thing that is common is the need to constantly grow.

Developing new skills, gaining responsibility, and increasing your job satisfaction is what we all strive for.  Icing on the cake is achieving all of this while increasing our income at the same time.  Is that simply pie in the sky, or is that possible?  It’s absolutely possibly, and there people all over the world doing just that.

Education certainly plays a part, as does industry.  But in the IT industry, earning a 6 figure salary is definitely a possibility if you create a plan, know what you want and know where your going.  Setting goals, both short term and long term, is extremely important.  Without goals, you’ll never know if you are on track, or even heading in the right direction.

I know personally that moving from company to company can sometimes be challenging if not down right difficult, but you can’t look at any particular move as the “end-all-be-all” and think “What if I go there and I don’t like it”? 

It’s not the end of the world, and it’s not forever.  Look at each move you make as a stepping stone, and if love it stay there as long as it excites you.  If you hate it, gain as much experience as you can, leverage any training or opportunities the company has to learn new technologies or business processes, and then look for better opportunities.

By looking at it as “there is a light at the end of the tunnel”, the idea of switching to a new company and possibly not liking it becomes instantly more tolerable.  You realize you are there for a finite period of time, and that you will be using it as learning experience to acquire new skills, boost your marketability and improve your resume.

Change is good, although we often fear it.  Stability is good although we often get bored.  These two basic human needs are always in direct conflict with each other, oddly enough, and form the basis for what drives us (and drives us crazy).  Always be willing to challenge yourself though, and push to reach your full potential. 

There ARE people out there doing exactly what they want to be doing, where they want, how they want, and with who they want.  That’s not fiction, it is reality for some.  The difference between those people and you is that that they went for it, and weren’t afraid of change. Go for it, and see where the future takes you.