Gaining Clarity When You Feel Stuck
One of the top questions I receive, almost daily, is about building career clarity... something along the lines of this question:
"Ashlee, I am feeling kind of frustrated at work. This feeling has been brewing for a while now, my confidence is starting to drop, and I think I am outgrowing my job or, even this career path. I need to switch something up.... however I have no idea what my next steps would look like, please send help asap."
Sound familiar?
My first answer is always: In order to build clarity, we need to drop the idea of what your career (& life) is supposed to look like vs. what is actually happening?
Next is about taking action & working towards your unique definition of success.
Turning Your Career Burnout --> Career Clarity IS possible for you, here are a few tips to get working on that right now:
Working backwards. Define what success means to you today (not 10 years ago), & what exactly you are working towards. Get back to your roots & answer: What is most important to you right now? These answers will be your stead fast, your immediate priorities when times get challenging.
Accomplishing ONE big task each day. Between homeschooling, working full time, planning 3 meals a day, and keeping up with family commitments, there is a lot of moving parts! Focusing on ONE tasks each day will help you concentrate deeply on the task, to think more creatively about the solution and to complete it faster than usual. It increases productivity and brings better results much quicker than trying to do too much.
Taking a break from social media, Zoom, and your phone. Take a break from all of the screens. Everything will be here when you check back in, but it is time you decompress & only do the ESSENTIAL work that is required from you.
Listening to your body. If your gut is saying something needs to change, do not ignore your inner voice. If you are tired, take a break. If your gut turns every time you meet with your boss, investigate this further – is this fear? Is this nervousness? What is going on here? Every hour on the hour, check in with yourself. Ask “What does my body need right now?” Do I need a quick break? Do I need to get up from the computer? Do I need to pee? Do I need water? Do not ignore taking care of yourself. Otherwise, you are on a quick road to burnout.
Taking that PTO you planned. Creating space in your life will allow you to free up your brain fog, and remove you from the noise.
Trying something new. Sounds crazy, but if you’ve always wanted to be a yoga instructor or an art teacher, try it out. What is at stake here if you never try it out? Your clarity will continuously be blocked, and you will always wonder “what if…."
Commit to making the changes. Review answers from above, & make appropriate changes to what the answers to the above questions are. You will begin to build clarity as you move closer to your zone of genius & what is most important to YOU (and no one else).
GET PISSED. This one sounds a bit backwards, but so many clients get extremely frustrated with building clarity. The mantra "We want answers, and we want them NOW" is part of the clarity process. Expect frustration, this does not happen over night. This is a lifelong commitment, and frustration is part of the process. Be gentle with yourself, lower your expectations - we are in a GLOBAL pandemic!
COMMITMENT. Life is so busy, most people, especially the women I work with, neglect to take care of themselves. In order to gain true clarity & work happiness, you need a higher level of commitment with yourself. You cannot push this off.
Above all else, we get an image of how our career is “supposed to be” from LinkedIn, our mentors, our education, social media, our family, but then we have our real lives to consider - kids, pets, mortgage, pandemic, marriage/divorce, infertility, cancer, grief, & the logistics of real life… clarity comes from being able to BLEND all of this together & make your career work FOR YOU, not the other way around.
Building clarity is about FEELING aligned with where you are at in your career, not necessarily being in a perfect role with a perfect schedule, with a perfect team, and getting the best pay check (although this would be awesome!).
The Hallmark movies that show us the “perfect” family – does that really exist? No.
Do “perfect” careers really exist? The answer to that is a firm no. However, career clarity & developing lasting career impact & happiness, stem from evolving and following through on your intuitions.
Remember: You CAN have it all, just maybe not all at once.
Question for YOU: What does career clarity look like for you?
xx
Ashlee
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Ashlee Klevens Hayes, PharmD, MHA
Executive Career Strategist
e: HELLO@RXASHLEE.COM
(SHE/HER/HERS)
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