Article at a Glance:
The first step towards experiencing more success and fulfillment in your career begins with shifting your state of mind.
From: “I just don’t have time to work my career right now.”
To: “Spending time working on my career is part of my current job duties, and doing so will make everything else easier and some of it unnecessary.”
Next steps:
Set your environment up for your desired outcome:
- Communicate with your boss that you’re working on your career and get support as best you can.
- Encourage, coach, and support direct reports to set aside time to work on their careers.
- Have career buddies to bounce ideas off of, hold each other accountable to do the work, and support each other while having fun doing it.
- Get a coach.
Create the time:
- Block off time one day per week for 1 hour of non-negotiable uninterrupted time to reflect on the current state of your career
Step 1 of creating a fulfilling and successful career
I recently had a conversation with a national director of sales, let’s call him Mike, regarding his feelings of frustration and burnout with his current role. As we dove deeper into his situation, it became clear that he was feeling overwhelmed and never had enough time, that he was constantly reacting, and things were a bit out of control.
He realized the importance of working on the bigger picture of his career, but as I hear repeatedly, he said, “I just don’t have time and space right now to work on my career. I have too many things going on in my current role plus family, plus….”
Like many professionals these days, Mike had slowly given control of his world away over the years. He’d lost (or maybe never had) a clear vision of what he really wanted for his career, of what he wanted to experience and achieve. As a result, Mike had done what most people do and said yes to seemingly good opportunities. He had slowly gotten off on a path that did not align with his interests, the skills, and talents that gave him energy, and he worked with people who didn’t resonate with his values.
I see this basic story over and over again: the burned-out, high-achieving professional, with the feeling of lack of control and lack of fulfillment. It all slowly creeps up over the years and then culminates in what seems like a sudden loss of control, lack of fulfillment, and feelings of frustration. This typical scenario begins incrementally like the proverbial frog in the pot of slowly heating water until one day the “water” is boiling and the “frog” is, well, boiled.
“I’ll work on my career when I have the time.” What if the opposite were true? That by working on your career in a regular, purposeful way, everything else would be easier, and some of it might even be unnecessary? That working on your career would make you better at your current job? Because by working on your career, you’d be able to gain more control back to work on what you are interested in and passionate about.
By flipping the script and creating time to work on your career, you’ll get time back in the form of being more effective and efficient. You’ll work smarter, not harder and longer, because you’re working on projects that align with your top skills and talents with people/teams that you enjoy. You’ll be more energetic, engaged, focused, and accomplish more in less time because you’re working on projects that align with your passions and interests, and values. You’ll have a greater sense of purpose because you have done the work to determine the actual value you bring to the world. Overall, you’ll achieve higher levels of success because you’re performing at your optimal best and enjoying the ride.
Like so many professionals that I work with, Mike began to realize the uncomfortable fact that he’d slowly given control of his career away over the years. He also began to see that to regain control, experience fulfillment, and have more success, he needed to take ownership of his career. To start running and viewing his career as if it’s a business (more on this concept in the next blog) instead of allowing circumstances to run it; to become the captain of his ship and not a captive of circumstances.
This isn’t some airy-fairy pie in the sky unachievable thing. It all begins with changing your state of mind, and your outcomes will be different by doing so. I’ve seen it repeatedly with clients that make that mind shift from not enough time to this will give me more time and the resulting successes.
The most fulfilled, highest performing, resilient, and overall successful people make working on their careers a top priority. They know that doing so will make everything else easier or unnecessary across their careers and lives.
No matter how busy things get, working on your career is not negotiable. You cannot put it on the back burner for when you’ll have more time and expect to be successful. Because remember; you’ll never have more time playing the game that way!
Inaction to IN-ACTION:
The first step towards experiencing more success and fulfillment in your career begins with shifting your state of mind.
From: “I just don’t have time to work on my career right now.”
To: “Spending time working on my career is part of my current job duties, and doing so will make everything else easier and some of it unnecessary.”
Next steps:
- Set your environment up for your desired outcome:
- Communicate with your boss that you’re working on your career and get support as best you can.
- Encourage, coach, and support direct reports to set aside time to work on their careers.
- Have career buddies to bounce ideas off of, hold each other accountable to do the work, and support each other while having fun doing it.
- Get a coach.
- Block off time one day per week for 1 hour of non-negotiable uninterrupted time to reflect on the current state of your career. Ask questions like “how fulfilled do I feel with my current job?” “Do I have the levels of success that I want?” “What do I really want?”
And remember:
“A year from now, you will wish you had started today.”- Karen Lamb