For those who drive and can still recollect the time when they were learning to drive, changing gears was always like a nightmare on wheels – tough and complicated.
Taking a simple analogy of driving and placing it into our career, changing gears is still tough, its still complicated. Times have changed and the rules are changing. It’s time to unlearn and learn something new, learn to change gears for a smooth career drive.
This implies more for executives like me, who have had a recent brush with the much dreaded but inevitable 40s. The younger generation is knocking at our door. They come at a much lower cost than we do. They come with perhaps more energy than we do. We are among the creators of the price ambush economy where talent is up for grabs and widely available. Suddenly, I am insecure, am fearful. But, I have done enough learning in the top MBA colleges that I went to years and years ago. What they didn’t teach me then was how to unlearn, how to change gears, how to win over fears.
So, what is it that makes it complicated? Our own thinking, our own doing or rather non-doing?
Train your brain to think like a winner.
Pause: You are running – it’s a marathon, not a 100 metre race.
Reflect: What are you doing well and what else do you want to achieve?
Be Aware: What extra supplements do you need to run the next lap?
Plan: Reach out, look and plan your resources
Change: Its easy! Just do it
Celebrate: Celebrate the new art, new skills and new results
Can we drive the change ourselves? Yes, as much as we can learn to drive a car ourselves.
So friends, it’s time to relearn, time to get another instructor. Call it a coach, a mentor or a sponsor, but it’s definitely time to invest. If you are the one waiting for the organisation to invest in you, to save you from the unseen hurricane, wake up! Wake up before you get stressed about the next move, the next promotion or the next hire to arrive in the corner office.
Reflect, find new meaning and purpose, or if you already have an idea, review and introspect. Get questioned, look for answers and ACT now.
Happy to help. Reach me at [email protected]
