When I hear people say, “The only constant today is change,” I feel like they’ve invited the enemy in and are making it dinner. No one seems to question the change or more importantly, look for ways to neutralize or get out in front of it. And I think today’s change has made it super difficult to manage career and have the peace of mind we’d like for life outside.
This week I learned about the unique ability of an executive I am working with: She can see where senior leaders’ thinking is going and quickly come up with solutions to their ideas, even as they are being formed. Wow. I hadn’t thought of it quite this way before, but I think it’s how people should approach career today. The way to get ahead of today’s grinding change is to avoid the distraction and look for the answers that come when you really focus and listen. The wisdom to find and sustain a job you love starts with you and goes out from there.
What if instead of accepting all this change and feeling overwhelmed and runaway train-like, you could see where things are going and proactively come up with your next move? You’d be like a career expert who loves your job and still has time for life.
Here’s a question. What outside distractions are affecting your career? Do you accept those as written in stone? What might be possible if they were different? Sometimes just imagining it can help us make shifts we hadn’t thought of.