Do you feel like you’re moving forward in your career? Career development is all about learning how to take meaningful steps to identify and then achieve your career goals and create a conscious career through self-awareness, intention and action. We can experience a strong sense of purpose and contribution when we find a career path that is not only satisfying but gives us something to contribute to that is bigger than our selves.
These 5 steps will help your self-understanding and recognise ways to grow beyond your current situation.
5 Tips to Activate Career Growth
1. Reflect on your career journey and identify the highs and lows. Notice where and when you were most aligned with your values. Do a quiet contemplation, recalling and writing down your past work timeline. Reflect on your experiences and the memory of your time doing the different roles and see what ones felt meaningful or like you were achieving and learning something great.
2. Learn about your strengths and talents and contemplate the ways you can expand on them in the workplace. Identify your VIA strengths through this free inventory and look at the opportunities you currently have to use your top 5 signature strengths in your current role or any new roles on the horizons. Your strengths are what you're naturally good at and they can give you much fulfilment from using them in the pursuit of helping others.
3. Explore what you want to get out of your workplace experience- the answer to this is different for everyone. Maybe it's more opportunity to serve others, maybe it's more money, less time at work, maybe it's the opportunity to learn new skills or contribute to a team and build relationships. It could also be a combination of things. But's good to know what experiences you want to have within your career.
4. Be open to making pivots, reach for an opportunity or skill up in a new area. This might mean moving sideways, relocating, or connecting with someone new in your network. At first you might have the impulse not to make a change but sometimes short term flexibility and adaptability can lead to incredible opportunities you might not otherwise have.
5. Be strategic and get clear on where you want to go. Having a vision is like a road map and you can align your goals and milestones to the career you want to create. Write down your 10 year career vision and don't limit yourself. If you can dream it, you can do it. Everything that has every been created in this world started with an idea and vision. There's nothing wrong with living day to day and just going with the flow but this can sometimes mean you end up living someone else's vision or reacting to circumstance. Having a sense of agency over your life and career can mean you get to be intentional about your growth.
These 5 career counselling and coaching steps can get you started on your career development. Allocate some time each week to check into your plans and make sure daily habits are keeping you aligned with your learning and development work and on track to reaching your goal. For more on individual career coaching and our career leadership workplace program visit the website.
