disrupting your career - introduction

My dad is from the generation where the motto: “find a job and stick it out” was the order of the day.  Not so long ago it was seen as perfectly normally to retire at the same company that you started out your career with. Not so much anymore. The world has changed, it is now perfectly normally to describe your career as having various “gigs” – similar to those up-and-happening music bands having a gig to play on Saturday night at the local pub, to the girl walking your dogs after putting up her handmade flyers in your front gate – she also has a gig walking your dog.  It is called gig economy.  You have various gigs at various places, with various degrees of stability. You might do some design work for company X, you might do some light PR work at company Y, you might do some yoga class instructions at company Z, and so the list goes on. This doesn’t mean that the traditional sense of “having a career” has fallen away, it just means that the two worlds – the one where gigs rule, and the other where a 9 – 5 rule, are merging. It's not a new concept. Our generation (I am a Generation X myself) might have called it moonlighting. The thing is these worlds are merging rapidly. With millennials also joining the workforce, the seem to bring a fresh way of looking at careers.

The reality is that the landscape of a career is changing.  Finding a “career that works for you” is difficult if  the economy is not really giving you what you are looking for, or your stuck in a place where you might find the company you work for “kind of ok” but you lack the opportunities in progressing (you either have to wait for the boss to leave, or you ARE the boss and need a new challenge) and now have to look outside your current company to find your GIG that suits you.  These are all prime examples of when to possibly disrupt your own career.

Do you know what most people say after they are retrenched at a company after the shock and range of emotions have died down? “It is probably the best thing that could ever happen to me and my career!”

Why is that? Well, the system disrupted them – they finally got the courage || insight || guts || right frame of mind, to make the fundamental shift towards whatever it is they truly wanted to do. You see when you are in a comfort zone, and you really are a very dedicated employee that really use all their energies in work time to produce awesome work, and you have an amazing boss, a fantastic career, then there really is no reason to disrupt anything. Most of us don’t fall into that category. We get used to whatever is not working at our jobs/careers and we suck it up – to feed the kids, to pay the house/rent , to pay off the debt, to live. Most of us are also only two paychecks away from complete bankruptcy. We know that we should have savings for emergency’s when we do lose our job, but we just don’t. So we don’t disrupt because we are mostly afraid. Rightfully so.

We should not disrupt our careers just for the sake of disruption. We should cautiously, mindfully and with great detail be in full control of our careers (and our jobs and our lives). To operate your career from a stance of fear, can cause a lot of unnecessary stress. You just work differently when you just “suck it up” versus taking control over your career. When you know where you are going you are building your empire. Whatever that may mean for you.

Join me in the next couple of weeks as we explore what it means to disrupt your career.

Stay mindful.

M.