Your Career Is What You Think It Is

In my work as an executive coach, the question of ‘how my career is going’ is a common one.

And it’s not exclusive to individuals that are facing some kind of obstacle or fork in the road.

It comes up with some of the most successful and accomplished people I know at the peak of their success. Which had me start to ponder, is there any value to the question “how is my career going” and how do people actually answer that question?

For most of my career, the idea of judging how my career was progressing made total sense to me. I saw it as a useful evaluation to determine whether I was on the right track. The idea being that if I didn’t evaluate it and ensure I was going where I wanted and intended to go, then I might be moving in the wrong direction and ability to be successful would be negatively impacted.

Then I had an experience that I’ve written about before, but really brought to light the fleeting nature of the evaluation.

I was in my office reflecting on my career in leadership development and all the cool things I’ve gotten to do in the last few years. I was feeling pretty good about myself and my career. My thoughts were interrupted by my phone ringing and I pleasantly saw that a colleague and friend was calling. I wasn’t expecting her call so I quickly and excitedly answered. What ensued what a brief conversation about this colleague’s career. She had just landed some interesting and extensive work and was thrilled to let me know as I had coached her about growing her business.

As I listened to her, I was thrilled for her. Not only do I respect her as a professional, I deeply appreciate our friendship.

When we hung up, I noticed a thought creep up and an uncomfortable feeling rise. While I had been content and satisfied with my career just moments before, all of a sudden I noticed a line of thinking about how my career wasn’t good enough, that I should be doing more, how was it that this colleague was ahead of me despite being in the business for less time.

Before I got too far down the downward spiral something hit me.

How could my career be amazing one moment and crap just a few moments later. My career - my perception of a string of memories I’ve selected to combine - had changed, but how?

Was my career not a stable and concrete thing that is either good or bad?

And is there a right answer to this question, one that is verifiably true?

Well, what I started to realize that the answer to that question is a resounding NO!

My career - this word I use to describe memories of the past or projections of the future, is simply that - a word I give to a string of memories or a ‘make be belief’ future I’ve created in my mind.

And are these memories concrete and absolute? No. How could they be?

And are my projections, mostly accurate and predictable? Also no. As I looked back at all the crazy projections I’ve made up in my mind I had to content that most of the worries I’ve had, simply didn’t actually occur.

Several studies have pointed to the unreliability of our memories. The fact that eye witnesses just moments after an event occurs have varying memories of the event, proves this.

Have you watched the video based on a study by Professor Dan Simmons where they ask you to count how many times the ball is thrown around between a group of students and when the video ends they ask, “Did you see the guy in the gorilla costume”?

When this was first presented to me my answer was, “What are you talking about? There was no GORILLA!!” They replayed the video and holy shit, there’s a guy in a gorilla suit who walks right into the middle of the circle, pauses, hits his chest and walks off. How did I miss it?

Well according to the study about half of the people that watch the video miss the gorilla.

And this is how we evaluate our careers. We bring awareness to the parts we want and make an assessment, but how do we choose what to give our awareness to?

Well, if we’re feeling settled and at peace, we go back and pick the positive memories to justify the fact that we’re feeling good, and so we surmise that our careers must be doing well and here are all the reasons why that’s the case.

If however we have some insecure thinking, and we take it seriously, we will naturally go back into our memory, pick all the ways that our career sucks and then convince ourselves that we have to do something about it.

The reality is there is no career other than the one you are creating in your mind.

A career is a construct we assemble in our mind that allows us to make sense of the past and project into the future. And what’s more, the evaluation of the past and the future projection is more indicative of our state of mind in the moment than any concrete reality.

How else could I feel great one moment and crappy the next even though nothing had concretely changed in my career from one moment to another? This is only possible if my evaluation is fluid, not definitely true and relative to my mood in the moment.

Which takes us to the title of this blog. Our career is what we think it is.

The place people often go, when we explore this together, is, “well if nothing is ever wrong, how would I ever change anything? How would I be motivated to do anything?”

Well, my answer to that is simple: why in goodness sake would feeling crappy be a path to motivation and creativity?

Does not everything we know about neuroscience today suggest that a calm and peaceful mind is the doorway to fresh thinking, innate motivation and creativity. The answer is yes.

But we don’t have to look towards science to know this. Look internally.

Do this very simple experiment. Sit quietly and do nothing. This is not meditation. It’s simply resting in a quiet mind as best you can or allowing your mind to wander while noticing your awareness below it. In other words, be grounded in the awareness of the present moment.

Simply sit there in peace and calm. Nothing to do or needing your attention.

What I believe will naturally occur as you do this more and more, is that you’ll notice inspiration come through. You’ll notice fresh and new ideas. You’ll notice a natural, innate desire to meet life, to create for the sake of creation, and to engage with life.

This is our natural state. We are innately designed and created to meet and engage with life in the moment.

If life were a wave in the ocean we would be the surfer. We don’t will the wave of life to bend to our desires, but we absolutely meet the wave. Dance with it. And make it easier for it to take us on an incredible ride.

And isn’t it f**cking amazing to know that!