Set Time to Walk Your Path
How often do you pause to reflect on your career or job search path? The momentum of 9-5 and post-work duties can easily overshadow time to reflect on possibilities or envision your Next Step. Setting a date to walk your path will bring vision—and action—to the surface.
At times our career paths are very well defined. They may be well defined by a clear rank and file or by the yearly goals you set with your manager. One step on the path clearly leads to another. But what happens when we feel stuck? Or directionless? That uneasiness can permeate through months or even years of our professional lives. Our life circumstances may begin to dictate, or interrupt, our next steps. Taking time out of a busy day to “soul search” may feel like wasting valuable time along your career path. Oftentimes, soul searching becomes “Indeed.com searching” involving frantic, urgent keyword searches on the train to work or while you eat your sandwich at your desk which quickly leads to feelings of defeat or shoulder shrugging as if to say, “Well, there’s nothing better out there.”
Set Sites on Priorities
The New Year/New Start mantras we see through our LinkedIn feeds are either highly motivating or highly stifling. The endless scroll of opportunities, job descriptions, and off-track job titles is very daunting. In these times of uncertainty, reflect (or build) your Priorities List. I’ve touted the importance of a strong Priorities List before—the priorities list is your quick, 3-5 non-negotiable life and career pillars that work for you now, in this moment.
Making Strides
If you crafted your priorities list over the summer it’s a good time in this New Year to reflect and see what has—or could—change. Here are some tips to initiate change:
Build time into your routine during a commute, five minutes before bed, first thing in the morning, whatever works to give yourself time to meditate or contemplate (some might even say “pray”) over your priorities and visualize yourself feeling fulfilled, content, and motivated.
Ask for your vision to materialize. Why don’t you mark a date in the new season of spring, a date that feels right to you, to realize your manifestation of what is your right move.
Devote the time to yourself to take control of feeling stuck and take a step toward what’s next.
Change your New Year into a New Season. You can do it and I’m always here to help.