Growing pains
If you’re wanting to find fulfillment and have doors open for you, treat your career like a business.
Nobody teaches you how to do this when you’re first starting out.
If anything, they’ll teach the opposite – which is to find a path, set it, and forget it!
You jump on the conveyor belt and trust that it will take you where you want to go.
This is an outdated approach that doesn’t work given the realities of modern life/work.
If you’re going to be successful you’ll need to treat your career like a business.
This means: Meet people -> Listen Deeply -> Solve their problems.
That’s how independent professionals grow their businesses, and it’s how full time employees create new opportunities for themselves when they’re on the market.
It’s the same process.
This is simple, but it can also be painful because you will experience growing pains along the way.
As a society we have a tendency to romanticize learning.
We make it seem easy and enlightening.
While it certainly can be enjoyable, it can also hurt.
To be a life-long learner is to constantly live at your growth edge – always looking out for new ideas and approaches.
When people get stuck in their career, it’s often because they’ve stopped learning and growing or because the growth has become too painful to endure any longer.
The hardest part is learning how to stay in growth energy even when you’re not getting the results you want.
It requires so much grit, emotional capacity, and compassion for yourself.
It’s hard to do, but you’ll need to practice a beginner’s mindset.
When you wake up each day, approach the world as if this is your first day in the game – like the results are just around the corner.
If you’ve been in the job search for 18 months, treat today like Day 1… let go of every disappointment and every dead end.
Replace the frustration with a renewed sense of what’s possible now that you’ve gone through 18 months of lessons learned.
The difference between success and failure will be those who say, “well I tried everything and it didn’t work” and those who say “I’m willing to try everything UNTIL it works.”
Don’t get me wrong. This will require you to level up in a way that you may have never expected.
You will feel angry. You will feel defeated. You will look at others and wonder what the hell they’re doing that you’re not doing.
This all may drum up a sense of shame and inferiority inside of you.
And at that exact moment when you feel the worst, it’s time to show yourself more compassion than you’ve ever shown yourself.
Meet yourself in that moment with gentleness.
Feel every emotion there is to feel, and then have compassion for yourself as you go through this experience.
I have a mentor who always says, “I’m able to accomplish great things because I’m willing to feel anything.”
Become the person who’s willing to feel anything.
It will expand your capacity. You’ll feel fully alive. And you’ll get extraordinary results.
Keep going. And reach out any time if you’re feeling stuck. I’m here.
Chris
Thanks For Reading!
I am on a mission to help driven people find clarity in the fast lane – making great money doing work they love, on their own terms.
Not sure what you want? Or feel stuck? Get clear on your life and career in 3 steps >> Download the Career Clarity Map for FREE.
If you’re looking to change jobs, grow in your career, or start your own business, here are some more resources to help you on your way:
Subscribe to my podcast on Apple or Spotify.
I believe that sharing resources and connections is the best way to grow in our careers, together. If you know someone who could benefit from free weekly career coaching, straight to their inbox, send this blog to them and encourage them to subscribe to the newsletter!