3 Steps To Reaching Your Full Professional Potential
"There's this striving feeling. Like a thirst that never gets quenched. I don't know how long I've had it. Probably since I was 5. A lot longer than I want."
"There's this striving feeling. Like a thirst that never gets quenched. I don't know how long I've had it. Probably since I was 5. A lot longer than I want."
The first conversation I have with new clients will often be one of our most powerful. We take stock of where you are today, get clear on your future, and after 75 minutes, you get feedback on your patterns, subconscious beliefs, and the habits that are f*cking you.
In short, you'll have a revelation. It never fails.
EXAMPLE:
I spoke with a mid-level woman at Tech Giant who GRINDS every day from 530am-12am seeking a promotion.
During our strategy session, we discovered she didn't want to move up! Not at this company.
Why? She didn't believe they valued her department. She knew they were conflicted about the initiatives she'd been tasked with; they had an uneven track record with people of color and mothers.
No wonder she wasn't moving. She was leaning into a tsunami without a life jacket. Yet because she'd had no time to consider her next move, she was on autopilot, clawing her way to the next rung, wasting her precious time, energy, and earning potential on a company that did not value her.
We're used to going to the doctor when we're sick. If we're healthy, what's diagnosed isn't life-changing. Exercise. Sleep more. Lay off the sugar.
We are less used to walking into an intake with the question:
Why am I not moving forward in my career?
The Common Pattern
THE DEAL:
It is normal for human beings to want to fulfill their potential. You want more.
THE PROBLEM:
You aren't sure what 'more' looks like, OR if you do, you don't know how to get there.
COMPLICATIONS:
Too many choices. Not just for your future but for your life.
From the moment you wake, you choose what to wear, and eat, how to exercise, structure your day, what's most important, what to say each time someone makes an ask in person, over email, text, Whatsapp, what to eat or buy, whether it's healthy AND ON.
If you were an informed human in 2019, you likely suffer from decision fatigue—the idea that our brains can only process so many daily choices. Given the demands of modern life, we burn through our upper limit by mid-afternoon.
THE EFFECT:
Your energy is depleted by 3 or 4 pm, and you're unfocused. You make lazy decisions about work, what you put in your body and zombify with Succession when YOU KNOW you should be planning your own.
What To Do About It
1. Concentrate on what matters by eliminating choices
Are you aware that Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Obama all basically wear the same thing every day?*
If the premise is you only get a certain number of decisions before your brain overheats, cutting out debating small choices is a good place to start.
Plan your day. Your wardrobe. Fight for stability at work. You need it to make more serious decisions.
Having a macro vision of where your work future is another tool. Knowing what 'more' looks like with specificity allows you to say no to the things that distract you from it. Does this get me closer to my vision? If not, bail gracefully.
2. Build a support network
Do you know what else Obama, Zuckerberg, and Jobs have?
Staff and wives who take care of everything so they don't have to figure out where their next meeting is or what's for dinner.
Okay. You probably don't have a staff... yet. But you can create your own support network.
I spend YEARS as a lone wolf, thinking I had to do it all on my own. In the last year, I built up systems to help reduce my choices.
As of writing, I have a coach (to plan for the future), a therapist (to heal the past), a triathlon group (to keep my body moving on a schedule. I don't think. I do the workout), a micro fascial release guy (to deal with all the intensities I put my mind and body through).
I am on at least 3-4 messaging threads to keep me informed and engaged with other people who get it.
I get my food delivered on Amazon Prime. I have someone who cleans my home. Someone who manages my money. An assistant who manages my time.
If I have a problem, I find a book, a course, or a mentor.
I chose and invested in all this because I decided I wanted to spend more of my time on things I was good at or enjoyed.
It didn't come all at once. I built it bit by bit. I am grateful for all of it.
N.B. I still write my own blog posts. :)
3. Take action
No one is saying you need to wear one color for the rest of your life.
I'm not even saying you can't watch Succession.
But having a vision and building some support to strategize and stay accountable to doing what you need to do to move toward step by step is the sanest way I know to take action.
Are you ALWAYS certain you have the perfect next step? No. But it frees up a LOT of mental and emotional energy, knowing you're generally on the right track. Plus, it keeps you from looking weird in a black turtleneck.
Want feedback on what's holding you back?
Need to quench that insatiable thirst for more?
Know you have what it takes to get to the next level but aren't sure exactly what it is, how to get there or wanna do it faster?
In two months it will be 2020. In one month, you'll be overloaded with holiday shenanigans. This month, book a free strategy session. It's 75 minutes to learn what you need to look at to move you forward. That's one episode of Succession.