Episode 95: The Seasons of Your Career
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There are seasons in life and your career. We all have Springs and Winters. Maybe even within the same quarter. You can’t treat each season the same. You need to pivot and refresh your approach depending on your season. In this episode, I discuss:
How to recognize what season your career is in
Why Seasons have nothing to do with your age, tenure, or title
The signs that prepare you that the next season is coming
What causes us to force an early Winter and how to use the time strategically
Tips to flourish in each season
It has nothing to do with age, tenure or title. It has to do with mindset and method. Your methods and actions.
Mentioned on the show:
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Read The Transcript
Hi there,
Welcome back to the podcast, I’m Jill, your host.
As the calendar year is winding down, I always like to take an inventory of things.
I definitely look at my goals however lately I’ve been thinking about cycles, phases and, well, endings.
I am going to do a podcast on endings in the near future.
When I talk about cycles I am thinking about seasons. Which got me thinking what season is your career in?
There’s a 60s song by the byrds, called turn, turn, turn.
The lyrics say,
There is a time for everything and a season for every activity,
A time to be born and a time to die,
It goes on to say, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to be silent and to speak.
Seasons are a part of life. We need each season to grow and thrive professionally and personally.
The fixed mindset would say I need more experience to go for that opportunity. Another fixed mindset would also say, I am nearing the end of my career, so I need to make decisions based on that reality.
There are seasons in your life and business but that’s not based on age, tenure, or title, my friends. It’s cyclical. We all have springs and winters. Maybe even within the same quarter. And you cant treat all seasons the same. You need to pivot and refresh your approach depending on the season you are in
I grew up in an area with a lot of farmland. If you’ve ever watched the sowing, growing, flourishing, harvesting, and winterizing of land then you’ve seen how the farm is cared for throughout each season. And it’s cyclical. You learn from each action, each, season, and you can apply the learnings again.
Each season has its duties.
Spring. The theme is planning
– It’s about sowing and beginning.
– Things are born, they begin to grow, and come to life. Ideas are popping and brewing.
– This can be the beginning of your career.
– The start of a new job. A shift in company leadership that impacts your reporting structure.
– Making calls. Meeting people, investing in human and financial resources
– It’s starting to networking and building relationships. It’s planting seeds with another industry leader with whom you feel you can partner with.
– This is also pacing yourself. There’s work to be done but you cant work frantically or others will sense it. You will be running on the fuel of drill sargent and anxiety and again, you’ll push yourself into exhaustion.
– It’s setting up your career strategy based on your values, skills, strengths and beliefs and creating a plan for what’s next.
Summer. The theme is growth
– Things feel good.
– You have actual growth.
– Feels lush.
– Things continue to grow and take root. Think about farming.
– Summer is a time of growth and watering, monitoring, managing, and protecting.
– Summer for your career could be you just past the first 6 months in new role and things are starting to gel.
– This is going further on relationships – maybe setting up conversations for collaboration. And people are emailing you back.
– It’s being on an interview spree and talking to lots of people.
– You are leading an initiative and things are all coming together
– This phase needs leadership coaching and executive development in order to for your career to be managed, guided, nurtured
– If you are not watching your career and your mindset strategically there can be a lot of missed low hanging fruit opportunities. This is a time when I see people pause on their personal development work because they feel like everything is great and they dont need help and the end up pushing themselves into a very early winter
– And eventually there’s almost overgrowth due to the lushness
Fall the theme is abundance
– You feel in the flow.
– This is gratitude. Appreciation. is a time for harvest.
– A time to enjoy and celebrate. Really get clear on what you created and pause to take in your wins. When we dont celebrate there’s a series of Belief systems that can set in pushing you into an early winter
— Never good enough
— validation/appreciation seeking from others – then you always need it
— burnout/exhaustion
– Once you’ve done that This is the need to cull get focused as you are starting to see signs of slowing down
– We harvest and begin to prepare for winter, which is coming.
– Mindset management, getting coached, up-leveling your performance and skills.
– Getting feedback, seizing the opportunity to pivot on a project
– There’s almost an urgency as you need to harvest of the bounty will rot.
– This is a time for massive, focused, efficent action
– You may pause on all the flow and decided to harvest
– The two big challenges I see here are 1) not preparing for the winter – this is anything from have your resources in order to mentally preparing for when things get slow. Do I do mindset work every day? No, I’m far from perfect but I am hitting probably 5 out of 7 days a week.
— Recently I spoke with a client on how they were constantly struggling with workload. When we dug into the facts, they’ve received great feedback from the CEO about their recent professional growth and team contribution but they felt that they had to keep up that level of growth. Meaning that every day they need to be up-leveling. NO. it doesnt work that way. Theres are ebb and flow. And sometimes we back slide. We are human. Not machines. Its when we put this level of pressure on our selves that our backslides are not evualed and looked at for what they are and suddenly we are always operating from that stress and then guess what, we are in a more prolonged backslide pushing yourself to an early winter.
Winter is about transition. And reflection
– Everthing dies. Yet there is work to be done.
– This is reconcillation of accounts
– Evaulations – reviewing successes and failures
– post-analysis of activities
– It can be a slow time that is not getting much external activity.
– It’s strategic rest. For me it’s not PUSHING when my brain is saying you dont have the answer because it’s still baking. Rest. mediate. Journal. Listen to great music. Read a book where I am not learning something.
– A time of rest but not sleepy. There is still work to be done.
— Begin think about goals and wins for next spring. Charting them asking yourself what do you want or need to do
— This is a good time to get clear on your non-neogtatibles for next season. Thinking thought your health, nutrition, spiritual, mental, physical, work hours, family and social activity time and working on the mindset and motivation to ensure that this thoughts become actions.
– This is in the hallway, the waiting game. The waiting for the take-over, the beginning of the new administration, the reorganization you are waiting for, the severance package you expect that’s coming. .
— And look, we know that sometimes opportunities that peel away – all the talk hiring freezes are examples of winer along with getting a BS raise
— This could also be a time where get less than ideal review and you need to up your performance. The winter is for reflect. When you have a plan of action, you then push yourself to an early spring.
— If you are not working your mindset this can be a season of struggle if you are not planning and getting ready for winter
– Recently a former client re-engaged with me to begin to work through her winters.
— She hasnt been doing the mindset work or the networking and she feels that she is not mentally prepared with her career winter.
— We are working on investigating her beliefs, resetting beliefs, and then beginning to refresh her career strategy plan so that she moves into spring ready to sow.
So what season is your career in right now?
It has nothing to do with age, tenure or title. It has to do with mindset and method. Your methods and actions.
As we wind down the calendar year, you may be in summer. How do you want to spend the time?
When you create a career strategy and manage and plan for all cycles then you can use the season to your benefit.
This is the work I do with clients. We get really clear on what they want to create. Based on their goals I coach their minds. And we work on removing any realy or perceived obstacles. Then we get into action.
Where I am supporting you and strategizing with you every step of the way.
I built my practice base on what I wanted and needed. What if I could run a business strategy or an approach to a difficult challenge by a person who can help me manage my mindset, see what I am not seeing and then refresh my approach? Gosh, as an anxious achiever, I would have saved myself so much time and stress. I’ve been there. And I can help you navigate your career and create what you want. If this sounds like you, schedule a free consultation. Details are in the show notes and on my website. Jillgriffincoaching.com
Ok my friends, I appreciate you