#38: Happy New Year! And your career strategy
Plans for New Year and some thoughts about your professional future
Hey friends,
Happy New Year! I hope it will be the best one yet.
Let’s get back to business after a well-deserved vacation.
1/ A few updates from my side
Initially, I had all these non-working days planned out.
Study accounting. Finish my email course. Watch some online courses I didn’t get to. Etc.
After a few days of hustle, though, I realized I needed a break from it all.
Which meant I took some days to relax. I took long walks, went for runs, to the gym, read, watched movies, and played on my PS4.
And, of course, spent a lot of time with friends and family.
It was good to get away from it all, but enough for now.
I’m back on track, and in the last couple of days I finished the free email course on “Career Acceleration: A New Job in 7 Days.”.
The title is not final :)
And if I hadn’t had some issues with my email provider, I would have finished it. But it will be ready next week, for sure.
I’ve also taken time to set the goals for this year based on the method from my last newsletter, and I think you should do it too.
I am not very strict about my goals, but I need to have them.
Each year, they are my compass and my north star, and I can plan my weeks and days according to them.
This year I also want to have a new approach to productivity, one that is more relaxed and more focused on the things that really matter to me. I am currently reading two books on the topic of “feel-good productivity,” and I’m coming back with conclusions once I go through them.
Among my goals for this year, I have:
running another half-marathon
grow this newsletter to 5K subscribers
decrease my body fat percentage to less than 20%
Did you set any goals for the year ahead?
I’m curious about them; reply to this email if you want to have an accountability buddy.
2/ Your Career Strategy
This is a topic that I expand on in my email course. It’s actually the first email in the series.
What’s funny is that it was the last email I wrote, and it almost didn’t make it to the course.
When I thought about it, I realized it’s one of those things we don’t usually think about, but that is so very important.
What do I mean by career strategy?
It means taking some time to reflect on the things that are important to us in a job. More than that, projecting where we want to be at the peak of our careers and creating a roadmap for that.
I’ll take me as a bad example. I don’t think I’m the only one who considered the paycheck to be the most important thing when I picked a new job.
In retrospect, this was a mistake, because based on my career goals and the different stages of our lives, we should prioritize other things.
That’s why I advise you to go through a process of identifying what is important to you in a job. I would repeat this at least every 6 months.
This is the minimal set of questions (there are more in the course):
What do I consider meaningful work?
Do I want to be a leader or an individual contributor?
How important is work-life balance for me?
Do I want to work remotely or go to the office? What’s the ideal proportion?
How much risk am I willing to take in a new job?
We often ignore these questions, and we only think about the paycheck.
What’s even worse is that we tend to stick in those jobs for years and years without asking ourselves these questions.
For example, the concept of “meaningful work” is so underrated these days, and I will talk about it more in a future letter.
In summary, we can’t be happy in the workplace if the things we do every day don’t give us purpose. And this applies to every industry and job, from computer scientists to construction workers.
So, take some time these days to go through that list of questions and understand what you want from your career.
Then ask yourself if the job you’re currently at is fulfilling these needs.
And if you feel it doesn't, sign up for my course next week :)
3/ Recommendations: “Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things” by Adam Grant
One of my favorite authors, Adam Grant, just released a new book a few months ago, and I’ve just finished reading it.
The book is centered on the idea of recognizing and nurturing the hidden potential in us and other people.
A few ideas that caught my attention:
character is the best predictor of success in life
talent is overrated (there are already so many books that state this and I’m certain it’s true)
the true measure of the reach of your potential is not where you get, but how far you’ve travelled to get there
Proactivity, determination, and discipline are considered the best character skills to unlock your potential
the best leaders are usually introverts who talk less and listen more
The author of the bestseller “Think Again” makes you do just that.
It’s one of those books that makes you rethink the concepts and things you always thought were true.
For me, it managed to change the way I interview people and how I see successful people.
Because that is the main idea of this book.
That we need to find ways to bring out the diamonds from the lumps of coal.
And instead of appreciating the ones that shine the brightest, we should appreciate the ones that were harder to find.
Thank you for reading, and let me know if you liked something in particular in this newsletter.
Until next time,
Leo
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P.S. 2: If you want to take your productivity to the next level, check out my extensive Productivity course that can accelerate your career.