Be the hero of your career journey

You can be the conquering hero! Vanquish the tyranny of bureaucratic promotions and internal politics! Slay the double-headed dragon that spews forth doubt and indecision! Conquer career challenges once and for all!

OK, OK. I won’t go completely medieval here, but bear with me as we imagine what it would feel like to be the king or queen of your career, guiding it with a clear direction, defending it against sneak attacks to overthrow your rule as you create a full and satisfying reign.

Unfortunately many professionals find themselves adrift, allowing their careers to happen to them instead of seizing control. They settle into jobs without much thought. The years pass by then they look up and wonder why they don’t feel quite as fulfilled or satisfied as they thought they would.

Others professionals see their career as being overthrown by a bad boss or toxic colleague. And while we can’t control other people’s actions, what if we look at what we CAN control.

What if we create a vision, then sharpen our tools and get to work on creating a career that’s meaningful to us. What would it take to be king or queen of our career? To do that takes someone who is willing to know, grow and flow.

Know

Before we can even create a vision for our career, we need to know who we are, our guiding principles and what the kind of life we envision. The stronger we are in our identity and purpose, the more likely we’ll be able to step into our roles and direction with confidence; less likely to be blown about by the winds. So let’s take some time to get to know ourselves and our guiding forces.

Who are you

Who are you now and what type of person do you want to be? Think beyond your roles and titles. Those can change overnight. Stay away from describing yourself based on your skills, such being an accountant or designer. You are not your skills. Use character traits to describe yourself instead. If you’ve completed assessments like Clifton Strengths or VIA’s character survey, those can help get you started. Basing your identity on character traits weakens the hold our roles and skills have on us while strengthening our sense of self.

What type of person do you want to be? When you see yourself in 10 or 20 years, what type of person comes to mind? Another approach is to think about those who inspire you or you might even feel a bit envious of – what about them intrigues you and would you be willing to do what it takes to reach their level of impact?

So now answer: who are you and what type of person do you want to be?

What are your guiding principles

When you’re faced with big decisions, what principles or values do you tend to gravitate toward or away from as you contemplate options? Even our small decisions are colored by our principles, often without us even knowing it. For instance, someone who values loyalty, honesty, freedom, and kindness will make different decisions than someone who values creativity, authenticity, zest and curiosity. No one principle or value is better than the other, they just help us find patterns to our own decisions and clarify what’s important to us.

Specific to our careers, knowing our values can help us decide if we match up to the organization’s values and culture. Early in my career, I found out very quickly that I did not align with the culture at a record label. What I thought was my dream job of working on Music Row turned into a nightmare. The journey from excitement and pride to humbled disappointment was full of lessons about what mattered to me.

What kind of life do you want to live?

This is where you can start crafting a long-term vision. You’ve gathered your character traits and values, now use those as a foundation for how you want to show up in the world. Your career can be, should be, the vehicle to express yourself, your values and create positive impact – what is the difference you want to be making?

Grow

“The only constant in life is change.”

We may be tired of this cliche, but as with most cliches, it’s founded in truth. Nature is always changing. Our bodies change all the time. Did you know our bodies grow new cells every day? Our perspectives change, the world changes, companies change and certainly our careers change.

“If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”

Another cliche, another moment in truth. All that changing that’s going on? It’s an opportunity for growth. Just how meaningful that growth can be is up to us. But the more we see change as growth, and then see growth as a path to the type of life we want to be living, the more we are able to rule our own careers.

Which might seem a bit ironic – to get the life we want we need to be open to change? Why have a vision at all if the chances of it changing are pretty good? That’s the thing about the tools we’ll explore here – competence and confidence – they help us welcome growth and its benefits.

Competence

Being open to growing helps us conquer career challenges in a number of ways. We all get that learning new skills is beneficial for our careers, but that’s basically table stakes. Everybody knows they need to stay on top of new technology, methods and processes. Learning new skills? Check. Doing that already.

Growing our soft skills is also helpful – communicating more effectively, collaborating more smoothly, leading by example. These also help strengthen our career potential.

Confidence

What about those who take growth a little farther? Step outside their comfort zone inch by inch or even in great big giant leaps? As they face their fears, even invite those fears along for the ride, they are proving to themselves that they can handle what happens. Some of that ‘what happens’ will not be so good, but the experience will show them that it did actually get handled. That they themselves handled it (usually with help from others). And they now have that experience deposited in their self-trust bank. They’re building confidence.

Confidence helps us tamp down imposter syndrome, which can be one of the fiercest dragons in the kingdom. This dragon rears its ugly head right when we begin to grow, as we step into new endeavors. So just when we’re feeling extra vulnerable and weak, that’s when it loves to strike. But confidence is a mighty strong shield to defend against its attacks.

Even if we’re the least experienced person on a new project, our confidence helps us realize we are not a fraud and we do actually have plenty to offer for this project. It’s not arrogance, it’s trusting ourselves, our own value and especially our belief that we will figure it out. Figureitout – what great name for the mighty sword that will smite that imposter dragon!

Confidence says, whatever comes my way, I’ll be able to handle it. Yes, getting passed over for a promotion is hard, but I’ll be able to handle it. I’ve got a strong support system to help me. I’ve got a strong sense of who I am and what I want. Maybe this promotion isn’t the best way to get to who I want to be after all.

Flow

Such a beautiful word full of so many meanings. The types of flow we’re looking, that help us conquer career challenges are the ones which encourage us to ‘go with the flow’ and the one which invites us to ‘get in the flow.’

Go with the flow

This is less about giving up when things don’t go how we’d like and more about shifting our perspective instead. It’s about bouncing back.

Resilience – the ability to recover quickly from difficulties – seems like that’s the poster child for conquering career challenges! So many of our challenges involve unexpected difficulties such as layoffs or mergers & acquisitions.

So do we become more resilient as a result of overcoming difficulties or does it take resilience to quickly recover from difficulties? Is it the chicken or the egg? Not even the scientists have that figured out yet, but they do see resilience as a skill that can be learned. And those who do practice resiliency report a higher level of life satisfaction and well-being. To become more resilient psychologists suggest things like strengthening connections and developing self-awareness & coping skills such as mindfulness and journaling.

Get in the flow

The flow state is one of those markers we often think about when we’ve had a great day –  those days when we’re so into our work or a project that we lose track of time. This version of “flow” was studied and developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. According to his research, there’s a recipe of sorts which allows us to reach flow intentionally. Imagine how strong your career will be when you spend more time in flow? Could being in flow more often distance yourself from some of the daily challenges, helping you become more resilient and confident? Some of the challenges which felt like boulders launched at your castle from a catapult might now feel like pebbles tossed from a child.

All hail, the conquering hero!

Armed with a clear vision, competence and resilience, strengthen your forces so you can conquer any career challenge that comes your way. Don’t wait for the evil dragons to show themselves. Lead with confidence, knowing you can handle whatever dragons show up in your path.