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This article builds on my Career Lessons Part 1 article. Enjoy and please do give me feedback by commenting below or sending me a message on social media. This enables me to best serve you, research in the right areas and tailor my content.
Do things for Joy
Our society is fixated on productivity and getting things done. I think by doing this many of us are in a state of survival. To do good work, advance in our careers and live happy fulfilled lives we need to understand that joy is not a luxury but a necessity. If we do not prioritise this, then eventually our cups will become empty. When we have more moments of joy, then there are so many benefits to our families, our communities, our creativity, our impact, and our ability to serve. We need to start filling the cup up first. What are the things that give you joy? Write a list and build these things into your daily, weekly, and monthly life.
Procrastination can be Overcome
Procrastination featured in my life for a long time. For me, it was an outcome of self-doubt. I didn’t know where to start, I didn’t want to make mistakes and so I would fill in time with things that gave me immediate gratification. This would leave me feeling worse in the long run. To get out of this, I never specifically worked on procrastination. Instead, I found that finding meaning in my work, building self-confidence, developing curiosity, and sitting with negative emotions, erased my procrastination. Make time for joy, connect with how you are feeling and most importantly, get to know the real you. Your procrastination is telling you there is work to be done.
Find Compassion and Empathy
Compassion and empathy can help with many different aspects of life. It serves your relationships, it gets you out of your head and present, enabling more curiosity. It helps make the world a kinder place where more people feel a sense of belonging. When you really understand people, I believe you are a better designer. This is because you know the importance of engaging with and understanding the people that will use your project once it’s complete. I have written an article on the role of empathy in good project outcomes.
Listen
Active listening is one of the International Coaching Federations’ core competencies and as I practice it through coaching engagements, I see its power. Listening enables people to feel heard. People don’t want to talk to have a solution given to them or to hear your experience of a similar situation. Being heard enables them to reflect on how they feel about what they have experienced, and to get a sense that what they are feeling is accepted by others. When people are enabled to talk uninterrupted, they are able to come up with so many answers for themselves. It really is a gift.
For myself, listening has helped me develop more curiosity, compassion and empathy which improves my relationships and my ability to serve others. This has ultimately led to more meaning and joy in my life.
Foster Creativity
In school and my childhood generally, I was always drawn to creative endeavours. To music, art, and design but I always felt it was a passion in which I lacked skill. What I am discovering is that when there is passion, it is the mind that gets in the way, not the skill level. Skills can be learned and my lack of ability to express myself was due to self-doubt.
I would procrastinate expression and therefore end up delivering something last minute rather than exploring many options and developing a final solution. All this was lost learning opportunities. I was stuck in my head rather than expressing what was in my body or my emotions.
I do believe that creativity can be fostered by working on your own state of mind and getting outside your head. When you stand in front of a canvas and all you are thinking is ‘I’m no good at this’, then the movements that end up on that canvas are stiff and inhibited. If however, you stand in front of a canvas with a desire to understand yourself or the world through art or to follow where your body goes, then this is a completely different feeling.
The method of fostering creativity is likely different for every single person because everybody has different inhibitors based on life’s experiences. I believe that the starting point is to get to know yourself better. Art can actually help on this journey, as can coaching or self-directed discovery.
Life Doesn't Happen For You
This is the favourite of all my career lessons because I profited the most from it. Life is a collection of daily actions, decisions, and interactions. I think you can have a good guess at what your life might be like in the future based on your days now. Of course, there are many things that happen that blindside us and we cannot predict those. It does however give us an opportunity to start living today in a way that will positively shape our future.
We get to be the director and we can say no to things that don’t take us in the direction we want to go. So have a think. Where do you want to be in 10 years’ time? Are you living the life that will get you there? What do you need to say yes to and what do you need to eliminate?
By taking time to think about these tricky questions we can start living a conscious life where we are the directors and where life stops happening to us but instead for us. I went through a transformation by changing my mindset from being the victim of my life to being the director of my life. It requires a lot of thinking and you need to accept that it will mean you need to make changes. Hardest of all is that you may need to do things despite feeling scared and whilst receiving pushback from those around you. It is hard work but I have found it to be so powerful.
Habits
Part of changing your daily life is considering the habits that you do daily. There are tons of great books out there to help with changing habits because it’s hard work! I suggest a couple below. For me, habits only changed once I was super clear about my purpose, my vision and what habits I needed to adopt in order to realise that vision.
Do Things for the Right Reasons
The final of my career lessons relates to the power you have to get really clear on why you do the things you do. Clarity of mind can be developed through reading, listening to podcasts, coaching, therapy, and mindfulness. These tools can help you to understand the real you, your values, and your desires. It can help you understand what you do for yourself and direct you where you want to go. This is different from doing something from fear, wanting to feel accepted, wanting what society says you should want or feeling a need to please others.
One of the biggest gifts you can give yourself is to listen to your inner voice. It’s there somewhere and it can express itself through your body and your emotions. If you have not been listening to this inner voice you may be feeling the tension in your body, anxiety, anger, resentment or misalignment. You may not have established boundaries to ensure your needs are met. Give yourself a gift and make it a priority to understand the right reasons to you for doing something.
Career Lessons Summary and Relevance
This collection of life learnings spreads wider than solely my career. In the two articles, I have covered purpose, vision and values, mindset, emotions, listening, joy, curiosity and compassion.
This focus on people skills is purposeful because I believe it to be the most impactful. It is also because I believe every aspect of life to be interlinked. For example, we cannot be dealing with a challenging personal circumstance and show up to work able to thrive and strive for better outcomes. We are human and how we feel and what we are thinking, follow us where we go.
When we tackle life as a whole and focus on our minds, always growing, always curious, then the knock-on effect on our career is huge. In a culture where we have all done this work, we are in a better position to cushion each other and act with kindness when things are not going well, because they won’t always go well. Challenges are part of life.
When we live aligned and understand our beliefs we can go into tough conversations with conviction. We can have an impact on project outcomes, team culture and organisational strategy. These skills help us get meaning from our work and we are recognised for our contributions.
I firmly believe the best way to grow your career and have more impact is through your own personal development.
Want to Know More About Coaching?
If you think coaching might help you on your journey to advance your career and have the impact you want on the projects you work on, then check out the Coaching Page on my website. I offer free consultations to explain my approach, work out your next best steps and see if we are a good fit to work together. You can get in touch using the form below or through any of my social media accounts.
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