Are you editing your life, media career?
By Lekan Otufodunrin
If editing can ensure we produce good copies, how about applying the principles in managing our lives and media career?
One of the lessons I learnt in journalism school is that the best way to learn how to write well is to be able to rewrite my stories and articles as many times as possible.
Coupled with this is the ability to edit and proofread my stories before passing it for other levels of editing. Over the years, I have mastered these skills just like most other colleagues have done.
We usually try as much as possible within our ability to rewrite our stories, features, and opinions and edit them to ensure that they are good enough for publication and broadcast.
Many of the insights in this book are not the first drafts. I had to completely rewrite some and delete some paragraphs when I was convinced there were better ways to make my point. When I am through with writing, I give some colleagues to help read through to ensure errors are eliminated and that I am communicating the right message.
If editing can ensure we produce good copies, how about applying the principles in managing our lives and media career? There are things that we need to edit in our career story – things that are preventing many of us from becoming the accomplished journalists we ought to be. There are other ways to go about our work, like when re-writing a story.
It is said that insanity is doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different result. What will be, will not be unless it is made to be. If you take time to review your career and life, you will appreciate the case made by Vanessa David Griggs in her article titled, ‘Editing our Lives’, and published in the premiere issue of ‘San Diego Business Woman of 2010’.
She advised that we should correct the errors of our career instead of allowing them to be like wrong punctuations, spelling errors and long sentences in a potentially good story.
“In your life, if there are people or things that may be like the blackness covering up the beauty of your life’s story, take a sharp instrument, so to speak, and begin to scrape the dark away. If things are out of place, highlight them and move them to where they need to be. If something is great and needs to be repeated, copy and paste it, but be careful not to be too repetitive. If something doesn’t need to be there at all, delete it,” Griggs counselled.
Are there colleagues you need to delete from your list of associates because they are a bad influence on you? Do not hesitate to do so if you do not want to remain at the low level they are in the profession. What career decisions have you made that you need to correct?
The earlier you do, the better – before it gets too late. What should you give priority to as you put in more years in the profession to excel? Motion without movement is not progress. What attitude is hindering your career growth? Decide today to edit them out of your career story. You do not need a letter of appointment to be the Editor of your life and career. Do you?
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