Career Navigation
Last Friday I found myself winding my way through countless small towns across Bergen Country in the rain in search of my son’s basketball game. Thank god I had “Siri” with me to tell me exactly where to go and when to turn, or we never would have made it.
If only we had a “Siri” to help us navigate through our careers…
When it comes to my own career, I am all too familiar with on-ramping and off-ramping, not to mention U-turns, one-way streets and traffic circles. There was the brief stint in advertising as a recent grad, followed by a successful run as an educator, time-off to raise a family, my re-launch as a financial planner, ending with me finally settling down– for now, at least– as a money and career coach.
Looking back, I wouldn’t have traded anything for all those twists and turns. But sometimes I wonder if there could have been a more direct road to get me to my current destination. Or, if not a more direct road, at least a “Siri” to let me know if I was headed in the right direction, or if it was time to re-route.
The answer, of course, is that there is such a “Siri” and it’s called your intuition. It’s not an external authority so conveniently built-into our iphones—in fact, it’s the external voices that probably send us off toward unintended destinations—but an internal guide whose job it is to navigate you through what can sometimes be dark and windy roads.
To help you find your internal “Siri,” try the following:
1) Get very quiet – Meditate, breath, pray, run…whatever it is that helps you turn down all the noise inside your brain. Just like how I make the kids turn off the radio so I can hear Siri’s every word when I am lost, practice turning off the radio in your head when you are unsure of your direction.
2) Write – Sometimes, however, I am unsuccessful in quieting my mind because there is such a traffic jam of thoughts clogging my brain. When this happens, I find that the best thing to do is to purge them through writing. Take out a piece of paper and start writing, anything, to help you empty out your brain overload.
If only we had a “Siri” to help us navigate through our careers…
When it comes to my own career, I am all too familiar with on-ramping and off-ramping, not to mention U-turns, one-way streets and traffic circles. There was the brief stint in advertising as a recent grad, followed by a successful run as an educator, time-off to raise a family, my re-launch as a financial planner, ending with me finally settling down– for now, at least– as a money and career coach.
Looking back, I wouldn’t have traded anything for all those twists and turns. But sometimes I wonder if there could have been a more direct road to get me to my current destination. Or, if not a more direct road, at least a “Siri” to let me know if I was headed in the right direction, or if it was time to re-route.
The answer, of course, is that there is such a “Siri” and it’s called your intuition. It’s not an external authority so conveniently built-into our iphones—in fact, it’s the external voices that probably send us off toward unintended destinations—but an internal guide whose job it is to navigate you through what can sometimes be dark and windy roads.
To help you find your internal “Siri,” try the following:
1) Get very quiet – Meditate, breath, pray, run…whatever it is that helps you turn down all the noise inside your brain. Just like how I make the kids turn off the radio so I can hear Siri’s every word when I am lost, practice turning off the radio in your head when you are unsure of your direction.
2) Write – Sometimes, however, I am unsuccessful in quieting my mind because there is such a traffic jam of thoughts clogging my brain. When this happens, I find that the best thing to do is to purge them through writing. Take out a piece of paper and start writing, anything, to help you empty out your brain overload.
3) Play – This is one of my favorite suggestions recommended by life coach extraordinaire Martha Beck. She suggests doing anything that feels like “play” and not work. The more you do things where your mind gets completely lost in the activity, the more you will find yourself tapping into your internal guide.
Just for fun, I did ask Siri the question, “Can you tell me where I need to go?” It responded bluntly, “I can’t answer that.” While I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple found a way to develop a device to manage our psychological baggage and self-doubts around our careers, jobs or life in general, the best navigational tools are ones we already have.