Your Career… What Can You Really Control?

Happy New Year.

Did you see the news last week? It was leaked that Amazon will lay off 18,000 employees globally. Wow.

These numbers aren't going away, and all the indications are pointing towards these kinds of numbers being the new normal.

In fact, redundancy is the new normal.?

In October 2022, just in the UK alone, 89000 people were made redundant up from 75000 in September!?

You can't control being made redundant if you're in a corporate role.

But you can only control your response to it and the proactive actions you can always control whilst navigating your career.

One of my favourite coaching exercises that I use is from Steven Covey.?

It looks at what we can and what we can’t control.?

Dr Stephen Covey says, “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions." There are many things that I don’t have control over, but I do have a choice in how I respond to them.

It's something I've used a lot way before becoming a coach and now I use it when Career Coaching.?

The Model is simple and the aim of the exercise is to build resilience and proactivity which leads to my favourite thing when coaching ‘Taking Action’.

What you can control? (Your actions)

What you can influence? (Encompasses those things that we can do something about – they are concerns that we have some control or influence over)

What you can't control? (Factors outside of your control)

Let's do this together quickly.?Its as simple as drawing 3 circles or boxes in your journal.

So let's look at your career now and list a few common points:?

What Can You Control:?

Networking / Asking for Help / Being Pro-Active.

What Can You Influence:?

Career Conversations / Your Career Path / Your Work Environment.?

What You Can’t Control:?

Economy / Redundancy / Toxic Boss.

When I've seen success with this exercise it's because you reduce the worrying and anxiety about what you can’t control and you get laser-focused on what you can control and what you can influence.?Once clear you can then start to map out the actions you will take around influence and control.

Doing this exercise builds resilience and it's the proactive actions that will strengthen you in the event of being made redundant or experiencing other factors that you can’t control.?

It sounds really easy? So why doesn't everyone do this, aggressively??

There are several reasons.?

In my experience, fear is the key reason that holds people back. Anxiety, worry and the time spent obsessing over the things we can’t control paralyse's us from taking action.?

Secondly, sometimes our own ignorance or as I always say 'burying your head in the sand'.

It won’t happen to me, I'm safe. That kind of thought process.. Until it does happen to you and then you have a bigger problem.?

Lastly and logically most of us know what we should be doing more of in our circles of influence and control, but here's the thing. We get stuck, we think even some of those things are difficult and we would just prefer not to do them. I see this often.

And that's when coaching comes in because you then have somebody holding you accountable for the actions that you know you should be taking. Somebody to question you and make sure you're pulling your head out of the sand if that's what you really need to do.

Where is the proof in all this?

We all know that one person. That someone who took action before the redundancies came, before the boss or company culture became toxic before the company started to underperform.

I bet you can think of that one person in your career who never had their head buried in the sand. Why isn't that you?

Before I go please check out my resources below. These are all the things I work hard on to help you, become a better you!

Speak Soon.

Justin