Embarking on a new career journey, whether it’s starting your first job, a promotion into a leadership position or changing careers entirely can bring out mixed emotions from excitement and hope to nervousness and fear– all these emotions can be a lot to deal with. With every new challenge, we can expect to feel nervous, worry about failing and question ourselves at almost every turn. Here are 5 tips to help you navigate this transition.

Get Your Foundations Right

“You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation.” ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

This is true for us as well, without a solid foundation, how can we expect to take on new challenges and grow?

Routines

The first step in creating a solid foundation is to build a robust routine. A routine is like an action plan for our day with a focus on things that are going to set us up well for the day or week ahead.

Some elements that are known to work for others are, getting to bed at a certain time each night ensuring you get your 8 hours of sleep, meditation, gratitude journalling, exercise, reading and getting your clothes out the night before but your routine needs to work for you.

We need to include elements that work for us and remove elements or habits that aren’t. In most instances, when we are stressed or overwhelmed, we throw our routine out the window – it becomes another set of things we need to do in this ever-growing to-do list, but that’s when we need it the most. Make sure that you are giving yourself compassion by creating a list of must-haves that set you up correctly for the day and just focus on those during the stressful times; when things are back to normal you can add on the extra elements or increase the times in routine that make your day just that little bit better.

Get going: Create your routine for your perfect day or week, then create a fall-back plan for the bare minimum you can do when you have hectic or stressful weeks. By proactively planning for the weeks where you can do less, you will still achieve the elements of your routine that help you and you will remove the guilt from not being able to do your standard or full list of routine items.

Work-Life Harmony

Simon Sinek believes that you can build a life where your professional and personal life work together, where you choose what effort to give and at what time. He says just like you can’t help when you get a great idea, this may be in the evening or on the weekend in personal time, you can’t help when you need a break. Prioritise your self-care when you need even if it’s during official work hours, take the break to just breathe, meditate or journal.

Here are a few tips to help you find fulfilment in both your career and your personal life.

Schedule Time

Track your energy levels throughout the day, week and month and schedule your work accordingly. If you know that mornings are when you think best, plan focus work then and keep your admin or easier tasks for that afternoon slump. Use prioritisation frameworks to help you determine what is critical, what can be delegated and what can be removed entirely, lastly don’t forget to schedule time for learning.

Focus on Relationships

It’s important to focus on both your professional and personal relationships. Make the time to develop relationships with your team by learning how they like to work and interact.

Focus on being present and spending quality time with family and friends to create deeper connections and surround yourself with people who fill up your cup.

Most importantly, set boundaries so that your family and team know when you are working and when you are in personal time.

Get going: Reflect on your career and personal goals and think about what a harmonious life looks like for you – what are the key elements that need to be in your life to achieve harmony, i.e., what are your hobbies, what does self-care look like, relationships, learning etc. Then create a vision board to remind yourself of what you want; having a visual reminder will help you stick to it.

Focus on You

Increase Your Confidence

Todd Herman explains a term called enclothed cognition which means that when you wear certain things, you are perceived a certain way, in other words, you attach meaning to the clothes others wear. According to him, we can use this to our advantage with our clothes as we begin to unconsciously exhibit the traits of the clothing.

We all know that when we put that certain outfit on, we feel great so why don’t we do that every day? By dressing in a way where we feel confident to perform a certain role, we actually become more confident. We can use clothes to help bring out our different traits for the different roles we perform in our lives – when we go to the gym, let’s put on that outfit that makes us feel invincible, when we walk into that scary presentation let’s put on those glasses or suit that makes us feel powerful and let’s show the world what we can do!

Get going: Watch this short video from Todd Herman on creating your alter ego or even better read his book called The Alter Ego Effect and start to see your confidence soar.

Focus On Your Strengths

Identify your unique strengths and skills. Embrace the qualities that set you apart, whether it’s your creativity, analytical thinking, or leadership abilities. Leveraging these strengths will allow you to make a meaningful impact in your chosen field.

Once you know your  strengths, try to identify the rest of your team’s strengths and encourage the team to share these with other team members and leaders. By doing this, leaders will be able to assign work according to each individual’s strengths which will increase fulfilment and team members will know who to go for when they are struggling with certain elements that others are great at.

Get going: Read this great article by Gallup to see how you can leverage your strengths and start to practically apply these in your  work. Then encourage others to do the same: Personal Growth and Development: Ways to Use and Aim Your Strengths

Want to go one step further, get your team to join our Strength’s Revolution Campaign and find your Why: Strength’s Revolution

Create an Explorative Mindset

With the only constant being change, we need to focus on building resilience and adaptability. We do this by cultivating an explorative mindset through curiosity, continuous learning and openness.

In a world where we have been taught to raise our hands to answer a question in class, it can be a strange feeling when we change that approach to  ask a question. Asking a question invokes vulnerability, a sense of fear of what people may think but the majority of the time, people are just grateful that you asked the question that they were too afraid to ask.

When we ask questions and let go of the need to be right, we gain other perspectives, deepen our knowledge and create connections with others – our openness to be vulnerable gives people permission to do the same.

So, spend more time listening, asking questions, researching and going down rabbit holes to grow your curiosity.

Get Going: Read this great article on how Maria Popova uses a note-taking system while she reads books. This great tool can help you focus on key points and topics within a book and creates a great reference system for you to go back to certain topics that you found impactful, what to work on and what you want to spend additional time researching. Maria Popovas: Note Taking System

As you step into this new transition period, remember that your journey is uniquely yours. Embrace challenges, celebrate achievements, and continually invest in your growth. The world is waiting for your gifts and talents, and your determination will shape a successful and empowering career path.

References

(n.d.). Personal Growth and Development: Ways to Use and Aim Your Strengths. Clifton Strengths. https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/402029/how-to-develop-improve-strengths.aspx#ite-402062

[Todd Herman]. (2021, September 23). What is an Alter Ego? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDgEC1yfucQ

Staggl, S. (n.d.). Maria Popova’s note taking system. Noisli. Retrieved September 28, 2023, from https://blog.noisli.com/maria-popovas-note-taking-system/