Best career development strategy: invest in yourself

Do you know the fastest way to achieve your career goals?

Hint: it’s not going it alone.?If you try to fix your problem alone, you are taking the longest, most expensive route to fix your issues, if they get fixed at all. You will be responsible for doing the research, testing, keeping yourself motivated and accountable to achieve your goals and fix your problems. Can you do it? Possibly. It depends on the size of your problem you are solving and your own ability to stay motivated throughout the process till you achieve it.?This is a struggle for most people. It's why successful people invest in a coach. It was for me. Dreams that have any real substance to them will be hard to achieve especially if you keep using tactics to try and solve your root problems. That won’t work. If you don’t identify and deal with the root of your issues, albeit in life, business, or your career, the time, money, and energy you are investing in these quick tactical fixes like how to write your resume, is not going to bring you the results you’re looking for.

How do I know this? I’ve lived it. I spent 5+ years and tens of thousands of dollars on tools and tactics to help me better navigate my career and business only to see a very limited return on my investment if anything at all.?I’ve invested time, money, and energy in strategies and tactics that focused on how to write a high converting resume, cover letter, portfolio, honing my UX skills and launch a new business, only for the solutions I paid for to fail to deliver on the promise. They didn't help me get to the root of the issue so my problem continued. Maybe that's you. You feel tired of investing in "solutions" that promise you they can fix what's ailing your career only to be let down again and again.

There's nothing wrong with investing in tools to help you nagivate your career. They will be a piece of the puzzle to get the result you desire. The problem is when you do that before you've dealt with the root issue, it sets you up for more pain and frustration. What if instead of investing in tools first, you invested in you? You invested in understanding what's going on with you so you can stop the cycle that's producing undesireable results by breaking the patterns and beliefs that remain unresolved in your unconscious mind? Those results are designed to tell you what your unconscious mind wants you to deal with so it can return to a state of rest and calm.

The turning point for me was investing in Virtual Influencer Academy’s Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Certification Course .

“What is NLP?” you ask. NLP is the language of the unconscious mind that teaches you how to model excellence. By learning NLP, you discover how to communicate with your unconscious mind so you can positively affect it, removing what's holding you back and replacing it with the outcomes you want and you learn how to effectively influence the unconscious mind of others. Need to negotiate better with team members and stakeholders on your projects at work? NLP can help. Need to persuade your boss or leadership of the value of your proposal in an upcoming presentation? NLP can help. Need help communicating with your direct reports? NLP can help.?

We all have traumatic experiences that trigger us to respond in ways that negatively impact our lives.?Much of the time this started in childhood where we experienced something or a series of somethings that caused us to believe certain things about ourselves that no longer serve us.?NLP gives us tools and techniques that we can use to help us resolve those internal conflicts, so they are no longer causing us problems. It teaches us how to become better communicators in life, business, and our careers, which is key in achieving our career aspirations.

I’ve seen it in my own life. In my past, I’ve struggled with feeling like I wasn’t good enough and too much for those I was in relationship with as a result of growing up with narcissistic parents.?I wasn’t raised to be a whole person, but a part of my mom. That resulted in a lot of internal conflict and limiting beliefs. The negative behavioral patterns and limiting beliefs I learned in childhood held me back from fully expressing myself for fear of rejection and kept me stuck in a cycle of fight, flight, or freeze. As a result, I experienced physical and mental health issues, multiple toxic workplaces, had people who claimed to be my friends betray me, and been bullied at work.

By learning NLP, I’m now better equipped to handle my own triggers, it’s helped me regrow my self-confidence, become a better creative problem solver by becoming more curious. In seeing my own transformation, it’s inspired me to use these tools to help other ambitious designers like me get their own personal and/or professional breakthrough.?

The transformation with my clients has been amazing. In four sessions, one of my clients, Sara, went from being unsure about her career in UX, overwhelmed and angry to the point of tears, to being happy and empowered in her career. In less than 6 weeks, she landed a new job with a significant pay increase that is in alignment with her own values and will offer her the support she’s looking for in order to grow her career in the direction she chooses, instead of having it dictated to her by other people. Sara models for us how taking the right kind of action to resolve her career issues helped her quickly get the results she’s looking for.?What she did in 6 weeks, many of us don’t do in 6 years.

Results like Sara's are why I offer a deeper, more holistic style of UX coaching.?I want my clients to be able to get to the root of their issues, resolve them, and then onto go achieve their career goals to the level of their authentic ambition. Having self-paced training around a specific tactic can be useful, but research shows us that only 6% of self-paced training is completed. I offer a hybrid approach. I want you to be able to quickly get results. To do that, I offer one-on-one breakthrough coaching sessions so you can deal with the roots once and for all, and I offer an online course that helps you identify the roots of your issues and teaches you step-by-step how to resolve them as you rebuild your confidence.

So, if you are looking for a deeper, more holistic approach to navigating your UX career, I invite you click the link to book a free 30-minute conversation with me to see if my methods can help you get the results you’ve been dreaming of.

Or maybe you are interested in getting certified as an NLP practitioner. I highly recommend you get trained in NLP by my mentor, Naomi Bareket. She’s accepting new clients for her next NLP certification program starting in October. Visit Virtual Influencer Academy’s NLP practitioner certification to sign up now.

Own your dreams.