I just watched @SimonSinek have a Huddle meeting with his team and something he said really stood out as important. Don’t keep reflecting on what we used to do and try and preserve what we had... think about what we will be doing, think about the why and how we will do our work in a new way.
As we are faced with a whole new world post Covid-19 it will be important to be ready. Ready with our purpose, ready with what we will bring to our role (whether your existing role or a new one) and how we tell our story to prospective employers or clients.
So many times I have worked with people who tell their professional story by giving a shopping list of the roles they have had. But that’s not their whole story. People recruiting for roles want to know who you are, what drives you, what led you to this time in your life. When we reflect on our earlier career - those job transitions or pivots - we often leave out those critical first experiences that continue to influence our professional career. They can form an interesting aspect of our stories, particularly when we think back on a time before we were inundated with work emails, held captive by social media and were responsible for paying bills. What appealed to us before people started putting boxes around our identity.
You may be surprised at what you rediscover about yourself, your skills and the type of roles that you seek today. By reconnecting to these early experiences you may start looking at job ads through a clearer lens. I love it when people tell a story from their youth that explains why they believe they will thrive in a new role.
We often think about our careers and our purpose in the world by looking forward, how to progress toward our career goals. The value in reflecting on your past is that you can create a more robust and accurate road map for where you want to be.
