Embracing Change to Accelerate Your Career

I'm sure we're all familiar with Heraclitus' axiom that "the only constant in life is change." Never has this been clearer than in today's world in which we are constantly being bombarded with news media, social media updates, rapid technological changes and, for those of my generation, the inability to perform physically the way we did even just a few years ago. Change is often anxiety inducing as it forces us out of the known and into the unknown. If we let it, it can completely shut us down and keep us from our full potential. But change also brings with it opportunities if we are willing to lean in and use it as a catalyst learn new skills and embrace new challenges.

Years ago a learned a valuable lesson regarding change and how to use it to my advantage. I had been in a role for a couple of years with which I had significant experience, but I had recently been assigned to focus on the Telco industry, a segment completely unknown to me. While my direct manager felt I was up to the task, my VP of Alliances felt they needed to bring someone in who had the requisite experience, and within a couple months I found myself in a new role, on a new team and in a new market, Public Cloud, that was still a punchline in the industry.

I had a decision to make: I could look for a new job inside, or even outside, of my current company, or I could strap in and find out where this roller coaster would take me. I chose the latter, and it ended up being one of the best rides and career decisions I've ever made. Not only was I able to quickly find success in the new role, but I was able to learn new skills, meet new people and be exposed to new technologies that put me in a position for more success than I would have had had I stayed in the role where I was comfortable.

Embracing this change had other positive benefits for me. As a life-long learner, I found the role was perfect for me. It constantly challenged me to find new and creative ways to overcome challenges and create demand in a rapidly expanding and changing market. I had access to information and data that few people inside of the company had access to, and with that information I was able to establish myself as an expert. This opened the doors to new opportunities and access to new and unique challenges. The more I entrenched myself and challenged myself, the more opportunities presented themselves. The one thing that was constant in the role, and this rapidly expanding cloud industry, was change. I learned to love and expect change. I learned to respect it and expect great things from it. As it became my constant companion it became easier to accept and believe that there would always be something better on the other side, and in almost all cases there was.

Since that experience I've found myself faced with numerous changes. Some were significant while other were minor, but in each case I chose to view change as an opportunity rather than a road block and I leaned in to each one of them. In doing so I was able to continue to set myself up for success and be exposed to new and mentally stimulating challenges, which would bring with them even more change. You might say it's become a virtuous cycle that continues to provide personal growth.

Change will always present new challenges, whether it's health, work, family, finances or any other number of things we have decisions to make. Will we let the change cause us to stall, or will we use it as motivation to accelerate? Will we let it limit our capabilities and capacities or use it to motivate ourselves to find new and better ways of accomplishing things? Will we fear it or embrace it? It will always be a choice that we will be able to control, and I hope we all choose to embrace it to become the best versions of ourselves and unlock the greatness within each of us.