710. Recognizing and Overcoming Challenges in Your Career

[00:00:00] Music Hey family, if you have a career you know that are going to face challenges in your career. This episode is all about how you recognize and overcome those challenges. Hopefully, recognize them earlier will improve your odds of overcoming them. Let's jump into this episode.

[00:00:28] Let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt like you're losing momentum in your career or something doesn't feel quite right, you're just not in the flow of it and so on and so forth.

[00:00:40] You wake up, not feeling inspired to go to work, whether that's jumping in your physical car or just walking into that area of your home where you work and when the day ends, you feel totally exhausted, like worn out as if you ran a 10, 20 mile marathon.

[00:00:56] I mean, just worn out. A lot of those could be symptoms of really stuck being really stuck in your career. The momentum's gone. The upward trajectory seems absent. The jet propulsion behind you has the window.

[00:01:14] All those things could be symptoms of that and so what I wanted to talk about today was recognizing and overcoming challenges in your career. And there are three I want to focus on today.

[00:01:25] There's several you go through, but that's one to focus on what appears to be the top three from some research I've done. And so let's start with this one that feeling of being alone at work. Have you ever had that feeling?

[00:01:37] Even in an office where it could be busy and so much going on around you, get you feel you are alone. You are isolated and you're not getting included in things. You'd like to be included in. A lot of that shows up when networking is absent.

[00:01:55] That's what the research says when you do not create a network and unfortunately many professionals early in their career do not understand the importance of networking by the way. I was one of them.

[00:02:06] Early in my days at Chase, I was heads down trying to get the work done. Thought I was doing all the right things and then it showed up later that my absence of being cognizant of the importance of networking was holding me back from a number of things.

[00:02:22] And in the organization that large networking is really important. I mean, I was in Jamie Morgan Chase for some I was there 11 years. And I remember when I had that awakening from a mentor who said to me,

[00:02:34] you're doing great work and you're performing well, but a lot of people don't know who you are. Like they may know your name, but they don't know who you really are. And so that was a great moment for me to make a shift and be intentional about networking.

[00:02:51] Listen, I'm not going to say it's easy but the statistics bear out that it's important 70% to 85% of job openings are never advertised. They are filled through networking. So I want you to get comfortable being uncomfortable reach out to people use your breakfast time,

[00:03:09] your lunchtime, your snack time, etc. To go and spend time with other people. You'll be surprised that how many folks are willing to have a conversation. I'll give you a recent example. I went to a conference in Napervali about, I don't know, six weeks ago,

[00:03:23] met a, I saw a bunch of wonderful people met a bunch of wonderful people. However, I took note of about 12 people I thought I should connect with did not meet them at the conference. Simply came back, used LinkedIn and reached out and said,

[00:03:38] Saw you at the conference, saw you speaking, I thought it would be great to connect. I think who knows there could be synergies maybe not, but I just think it would be good to connect. To a person, each one of them not only responded to beset,

[00:03:51] thank you for reaching out would love to and I've met with half of them over Zoom. So I just want to give you a real time example of important to do to network. The second one is long-term planning.

[00:04:04] A survey by the University of Scranton found that individuals who set specific career goals are 10 times more likely to achieve them compared to those who do not. 10 times more likely to achieve them than compared to those who do not.

[00:04:22] Again, if you find yourself in that place feeling like you're sputtering that perhaps the momentum has slowed that you don't have that jet propulsion behind you, there is a high likelihood that those symptoms are connected to these challenges and one again being a

[00:04:38] point of net working with two being this lack of a long-term career plan. What are you looking forward to? What are you reaching out to which you're armed to achieve over time?

[00:04:50] I had a boss used to say, a great vision is out of reach but not out of sight, but you definitely need to be placing your sights on something that you're looking for to.

[00:05:01] Like if you're rolling in a boat, you can see it over the horizon and you just make you want to keep rolling. Again, if you don't have that in your purview, then you are missing an opportunity to propel yourself forward. Let's have a resource for you.

[00:05:15] Go to the CoilingSolution.com, void slash resources and right there at the top of the page. You'll see this success on your own terms one pageer. That will help you put this into words in the document as well as for networking.

[00:05:30] Same webpage, the CoilingSolution.com, void slash resources, scroll down the page and you'll see the network building tool. I encourage you to grab that. The last and final tip, the third tip I want to give you is, and I know we don't like this word,

[00:05:46] but I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it, family. It gives me politics. Yes, office politics, the impact of office politics. They are there. They're just hard not to be there. And again, politics, I don't think, unfortunately, what we experience in culture

[00:06:03] makes politics a bad word, but the actual fact is politics are way things happen in an environment. Power structures, etc. Hard not to have unless you want to total socialist environment. And even then I would argue that there want to be some level of politics.

[00:06:17] Anyway, I mean, I get distracted with that. Have you ever felt like you're working in a place where you feel like you're an outside of it? You feel like you're not in the information flow. None of the quote unquote good projects make it to you.

[00:06:31] Well, a part of that could be related to office politics. How do you get into that information flow? How do you come from being out of the loop to being totally in the loop?

[00:06:40] And against that is a show, many underestimate the importance of understanding and being in the flow of the office politics. And there's a couple things you can do, right? One, you could pay attention to the dynamics of how things operate.

[00:06:56] How does the information flow so in a so full of the second thing you can do? And this is I encourage everyone to do this in an environment they're working in.

[00:07:04] If you want to understand the culture, look at the power structures, who seems to be making the decisions? There's always the people with titles, names, offices, etc. But there's also the unnamed and those that do not quote unquote have a title that's managerial or leadership in form.

[00:07:23] But they seem to have influence. And so you want to understand all of those power structures and see how they work and then how you might fit in. Now I do think there's an important way in the road when you do this.

[00:07:36] And that is deciding if it's a culture that you believe you can succeed in or not. Power structures in of themselves aren't bad, it's how they're used. And so there is going to be a power structure. There are going to be people who are influential.

[00:07:52] There are going to people be people who have the accountability in name and title. All those things are okay, it's how they are used and how it operates and whether you feel like overall as a culture,

[00:08:07] as an ecosystem that is a place you believe you can succeed in. But you assess it, understand it and then make that decision. Family, you can integrate into it or you can respectfully exit and find the next thing for you.

[00:08:21] Hey family, thank you as always for joining me for another episode of the Cooling Solutions podcast. I always appreciate your feedback. Please drop me email, James Russo at thecoilingsolution.com or James Russo at holycoachord.net or my socials at James Russo S.R.

[00:08:38] at James Russo S.R. Love to hear your feedback. Please use the tools I mentioned, go to thecoilingsolution.com or slash resources. Same thing there as you use the tools etc. You have feedback, success stories, or get stuck.

[00:08:53] Please reach out to me what I love to hear from you. Until next time, a B and Form, a B and Power B accountable.