Happy Thursday!
Here is your weekly dose of clarity in the confusing world of career and professional growth.
1 RECENT ARTICLE
How to Craft Your Career Map
In previous articles, I have written about the four essential elements of career mapping: values, superpowers, curiosities, and needs. How do you synthesize these elements into a map for navigating your career?
What it comes down to is simple: creating your actionable criteria.
In this piece, I explain how to do exactly that and show you how to put your criteria into practice in your career.
2 INSIGHTS FROM MY OBSERVATIONS
I. Every group goes through the following stages of development: form, storm, norm, and perform.
Otherwise known as Tuckman’s stages of development. A Dropbox VP once shared this helpful model with me to explain the people conflicts that were popping up like weeds in our newly created department.
He explained that our department had formed and was now in the storm stage, where disagreements over responsibilities and ownership were common. We would need to resolve these tensions before we could stabilize our team and reach for high-performance.
Later I learned that while not all teams go through a storm stage, when it does the key source of tension is usually a lack of trust and psychological safety. I now always look for signs of what stage a team is in before starting to work with them to better understand their immediate needs.
II. Our everyday occurances, like a star-filled night sky, are opportunities to practice appreciation.
Every night, we can look up at the sky and see a few stars. Since I’m usually in an urban area though, I hardly notice the illuminated dots amidst the light pollution.
Last week, we spent four days in the remote jungles of the Amazon. While we canoed down the rainforest rivers, we looked up at the night sky and were mesmerized. it felt like we were soaring through a 3D model of the galaxy.
This experience struck me as funny. I saw the night sky hundreds of times this year but only really consciously appreciated it this one time. What if I were to not take it for granted and feel more gratitude for its presence? Would I find myself feeling happier as a result?
3 RESOURCES WORTH VISITING
I. Idea Generation and Problem Solving Using SCAMPER Technique (Cleverism)
Creative brainstorming is an underrated skill, particularly in collaborative projects and interviews. This article describes one of my favorite techniques for brainstorming improvements in products/services.
II. How to Develop Better Habits in 2020 (Ryan Holiday)
There are many solid actionable ideas for habit-building in this piece. Some of my favorites that I want to try in 2020 is batching, doing challenges, piggybacking new habits on old habits, and using a physical totem.
III. A Productive Morning May Make You Richer, But Not Necessarily Happier (Financial Samurai)
Interesting personal take from a personal finance blogger who describes the challenges of sleeping in as a parent. My takeaway? Sleep in as much as possible while I don’t yet have a family.
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Thanks for following along in 2019. I’m very grateful for you joining me on this journey and couldn’t have built this business without the support of my clients and readers.
Going into 2020, I can’t wait to announce even more valuable content, programs, and tools/resources that’ll help you build a career you love.
See you in the New Year!
Dexter Zhuang
Career Coach and Writer
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