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Career Advice and Tips (Back to School Special)

In the essence of utilising those back to school vibes to give us a boost for the final 4 months of the year – I will be kicking off a Back to School special with a daily piece of career advice and tips to help you Level up Your Career and kick start your motivation post the summer break! I shared these on social media but thought I would combine and add to for a blog post, as I had so many requests!


#1 INVEST IN YOURSELF AND YOUR CAREER


Sadly, no-one cares about your career and life as much as you do, so it’s so important that you are at in the driving seat pushing forward. Carving time out to focus on your development is important if you are wanting to level up and hit your goals.


Here are some of the ways you can invest in your development:


- A coach - working with a coach helped me see the world in a different way and was the driving force behind me making a plan to pivot from my corporate career to setting up my business. I see so much progress from my clients when they work with me and they monetary investment really pays off


- Podcasts - I am loving Manifestation Babe and Ctrl Alt Delete by Emma Gannon


- Books - a few recent favs are Atomic Habits by James Clear, The Squiggly Career by Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis and currently reading Hype Yourself by Lucy Werner


- Webinars - these are a great way to dip your toe into something specific


Are there any other ways you invest in your development that I have missed out?


#2 THINK BIG PICTURE


We get so caught up in the day to day and minutiae of our lives that we rarely take a step back to look up and think about how, what we are doing today, takes us closer or further away from where we want to be.


I’ve gone into detail here, but I think BIG PICTURE thinking is so important to understand your Life Vision of what is truly important to you and how you want to be living your life.


Here are some quick fire questions to have a BIG PICTURE check in:


· How am I really feeling? How is my body feeling?


· What is going well?


· What isn’t going so well?


· What do I want to keep in my life?


· What do I want to drop?


· What do I want more of?


· Does what I am doing now (in my life and career) taking me closer or further away from the life I want to be living?


How often do you think Big Picture?


#3 TAKE RISKS AND DON’T BE AFRAID OF FAILURE


Failure is uncomfortable, but it’s the discomfort that leads to personal growth and progress. Part of the problem is that society views failure negatively and make it seem like it’s a bad thing that you want to avoid at all costs.


However when we take risks, there is always going to be potential failure, as that is why we call them risks. Some may work and some may not. What we have to try and focus on is not the outcome, but on what we learn and develop along that journey. @elizabethday has a great podcast called ‘how to fail’ and interviews many famous people to talk about their biggest failures in an aim to destigmatise the word.


When I was in the corporate world I was offered a promotion in London working on this cool new exciting thing. Although it was a new area and I didn’t know anyone, I took the job because there was opportunity. This was risky and many of my network advised against it, however I had a gut feeling that it was worth that risk. Fast forward a year and that area was being closed down, I was feeling down-trodden and had to find a new job. Although for many reasons it was challenging and I didn’t always enjoy it – that risk was worth in the end as it helped me grow and develop in ways I wouldn’t in a ‘safe’ environment.


How do you view failure?


#4 LEVEL UP YOUR SUPERPOWERS (NOT YOUR WEAKNESS)


Now let me caveat, we have to be proficient at a certain level to do our jobs. If you are a painter, you can’t be crap at using colours or if you are a musician, you need to be comfortable performing in front of people.


However, I think that to truly set us apart and to level up, we need to focus more on our superpowers and not on our weaknesses.


What are our superpowers I hear you ask? I did a lil IGTV on this so check that out – but they are something you have that others don’t or struggle with. Your superpowers are your USP (unique selling points) and your top strengths, which sets you apart and differentiates you from others.


Focusing more on making those GREAT rather than on your weaknesses, means that you are focusing down your skillset and being much more strategic. Most likely what you are good at are things you love doing or working on anyway, so it is easier for your to work on those as it’s enjoyable. A personal brand of being excellent at a few things, rather than mediocre at many, is much easier to sell.


Here are some questions to uncover your superpowers:


· What are your top strengths?


· What do your close friends/family/colleagues say are your top strengths?


· What do you do better than anyone else?


#5 ALWAYS ASK FOR HELP


“No (wo)man is an island” says Hugh Grant in About a Boy (top 10 film). It is so true. Having a strong network of support around you both personally and professionally is so important to our personal and professional development.


I did a session on Networking for the Coven Girl Gang, a few weeks ago and there was so much fear around the phrase and how you did it. Networking is utilising your network to exchange information and to develop contacts. The key to successful networking is to be clear on how your network can support you with your goals.


Don’t be afraid to utilise your network to ask for help. Firstly, people love to feel needed and like their opinion matters (flattery gets you everywhere it would seem) so will likely jump at the chance to help you out. Secondly, asking for help and building connection will help strengthen your network, which in turn will better support you to achieve your goals.


A question to ask yourself is:


· What goal could my network help me with?


· Which people in my network can I ask for help and get me closer to my goal?


So that’s it, 5 tips for levelling up your career for the last 4 months of the year. If you’d like to know more about working with me then contact me to book your free 15min discovery call! I post regularly on Instagram and LinkedIn so check me out there!

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