Article by Marissa Peretz | Found on Forbes
We already know that reducing stress with interests outside of work can help your career. Numerous studies show this, such as the study on the correlation between hobbies and job performance by San Francisco State University organizational psychologist Kevin Eschleman and colleagues. However, what if we take this line of thinking a step further? Can interests you pursue outside of your 9 to 5 have a direct, positive impact on your career?
Leading teams
Knowing what motivates the people you manage, and how to communicate effectively with them, can have a profound effect on your career. This is especially true for those who desire a management track, or for those who want to lead other high functioning teams.
“I studied for my PhD in Psychology on the bus to away games as a player with the Dallas Diamonds, a professional women’s football team,” said Jen Welter, author of Play Big: Lessons on Being Limitless from the First Woman to Coach in the NFL. “Later, Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Ariens cited my PhD as a differentiating factor in his decision to invite me to join the team as the first woman ever to coach in the NFL.”
Strong foundation for a career pivot
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently found that the majority of college grads have a job that is in a different industry from their major area of study. Sometimes this is due to geographic limitations. Other times, what you enjoy learning in school may not provide the type of job you need to survive post graduation. That does not mean that the college degree is worthless. If you leverage the intellectual curiosity that attracted you to your major in the first place, you can learn the skills necessarily to switch industries.
“A holder of a Masters of Science degree from a top-tier Canadian University, I found out post-ivory tower that private archaeology was a quick way to starve to death,” said Jessica Thiele, Marketing Manager at VL OMNI. “Seeing natural parallels between anthropology, one of the founding disciplines informing archaeology, and marketing, I started on a course to make myself relevant in the eyes of the marketing industry. I enrolled myself in a professional certification in a top school, and started working through the courses on my own time. This was incredible leverage in the interview process, and landed me my first marketing position.”
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