Are You Getting In Your Own Way? Here’s The Stuff No One Wants To Talk About When Making a Career Change
A few months back, I reread Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection. All of the way back in the before-before times in 2013, it wildly changed my career and my life. Now it’s the essence of how I coach and support high-performers in reaching their goals.
In this post and video, I share some of my biggest takeaways from this book and how us high-performers can apply these insights to get out of their own ways in taking back control of their careers.
It’s not about “how to” find another job.
Career change can mean a lot of different things. For some people, it means finding a new job. If you want to go find another job. Awesome!
There's how-to guides out there for every single thing related to making a career change and being successful in a job search. But I have a feeling, you want a bit more than just a new job.
You want to find a career, a vision, a bigger picture of the work that you’re best at, that you enjoy, that adds value to others in a meaningful way. You want to find work that is worth it. That you’re proud of. That doesn’t leave with you a case of the Sunday Scaries and crippling dread when your alarm goes off.
Job search information is everywhere
We have more access to information than we ever had before. Hop onto LinkedIn in any given day and you’ll find approximately a billion experts, leaders, and coaches sharing the latest tips and nuggets to craft the perfect resume, to be successful in a job search, to negotiate and offer and get paid your worth. You can find all of the tactics to be successful in a job search with a simple Google or Youtube search.
And yet we're struggling like we never have before. Struggling to figure out what we actually want. Struggling to put ourselves out there. Struggling to tell our stories with authenticy, power, and humility. Struggling to have the courage to take action when we don’t feel ready.
Why is there so much struggle? The struggle isn't in the “how-to.”
That info is out there everywhere.
Making a successful career change is about addressing the stuff that gets in the way.
If the struggle isn’t about the “how to” make a career move, then what in the heck is it all about? Why do we so often feel paralyzed and stuck in roles that aren’t a good fit. Or aren’t a good fit yet?
"Because we don't talk about the things that get in the way of what we know is best for us." - Brené Brown
So let’s talk about all of the stuff that gets in the way. Let’s put it all out on the table, out into the light. Let’s take the power out of the mindsets and beliefs that normally live in the shadows and sabotage our career moves before we even get started.
We don’t talk about…
… The fact that we're on a proverbial achievement treadmill hustling away toward some vaguely-defined version of success just hoping that we’ll feel worthy at the end of the day if we reach whatever the heck someone told us success means.
… That what we're really craving and needing is to feel like we're in the right spot, at the right time, that we belong to something bigger than ourselves.
… Our deep desire to sit at our desks and have a wave of, "This is where I need to be. This is the work I need to be doing," wash over us on a random Tuesday morning. That we crave doing work that lights us up.
… How different our true goals, hopes, and ambitions are from the “shoulds” that inundate us on the regular.
…. How perfectionism and fear of failure - if left unchecked and misunderstood - prevent us taking back control of our careers and of our confidence
Stop trying to force your role to fit your potential.
But I will. Because I have no filter (ha!). Which is actually a trait my clients love the most because I honestly and directly tell them what other people won’t and listen like other people can’t. I provide the real talk to help them get out of their own way.
That desire to belong is innate. It’s human. And by not talking about it, we can find ourselves trying to find a sense of belonging by doing everything in our power to try to fit in and seek approval from others.
Regardless of whether or not we’re in a situation that has the potential for us to thrive.
Regardless of whether or not our values align with our colleagues and organizations.
Regardless of whether or not we feel that that experience will help us to learn, growth, and help us to become who we want to be.
Yeah, me too - guilty as charged. That was me in nearly the first decade of my career. Trying to cram myself into a job description, into an industry where I just didn’t fit and really never would. I hit a point where I realized no matter how hard I worked or how much I could blend in, I’d never fit in. And I didn’t want that. I wanted to belong.
Find work you’re excited about by being more of who you already are.
"Fitting in is about really assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging on the other hand, does not require us to change who we are. It requires us to be who we are. We can only belong when we offer our most authentic selves. And when we're embraced for who we are.” - Brené Brown
If you want to take back control of your career, you have to dig in and fully know yourself, your strengths, what you want and need out of your career. There's no way around it. There are no shortcuts.
To find work that lights you up - I’m not just another job that that you take on a whim and hope it’s magically better than where you are now - we have to talk about the things that get in the way. And in more than a decade of leading in university career services and coaching high-performing clients, I’ve found that it’s the key to standing out in a job search.
Reading books like this changed my career.
It also changed my life, my mental and physical health, and the way that I coach high-performers in reaching their goals (y’all, I wasn’t in a good place).
As those in my inner circle know, I freakin' love me some Brené Brown. The first time I read “The Gifts of Imperfection” was when I was in a really tough place in my career. I found myself with my dream job and absolutely hated it. But I had no idea what else I could do. What else I actually wanted to do. This book totally changed my mindset, my approach to work and life. It gave me a framework to let go of my “should dos” and “supposed to dos.”
It can change yours, too. If you are at a point where you’re seriously thinking about making a change and haven't read this book, I highly, highly recommend “The Gifts of Imperfection” or any of Brené Brown's work. If you have read it, read it again. You’re not who you were then. I guarantee it’ll resonate with who you are today in familiar and fabulously new ways.
PS this doesn’t have to be guesswork…
We’re not doomed to stay stuck by the stuff that gets in our way. High-performers who move past these obstacles and take back control of their careers, they start by learning what they do best and how to leverage their strengths to perform at the highest level. And guess what? Our strengths are NOT the same as our skills. Crazy stuff, right?
Ready to figure out what your strengths truly are? Let’s talk!