00:00:00: Introduction
00:00:16: 5 ideas for action…
00:00:25: … 1: reflect on small successes
00:01:13: … 2: end your week with ‘even better if’
00:02:24: … 3: create team learning goals
00:03:40: … 4: ask for fast strengths feedback
00:04:23: … 5: add in active rest
00:05:15: Final thoughts
Helen Tupper: You don’t need to find hours every day to invest in your career development. You just need to find five minutes and a little bit of curiosity and you can make a lot of progress. In this Squiggly Career Shortcut, I’m going to talk about five easy everyday ideas that are going to make a really big difference to your development. So, idea number one, start to reflect on your very small successes at the end of every day. Your very small successes are those little things that you do well that we often miss because we’re so busy and we’re always moving on to the next thing. But if you can start to create an intention, a habit, where you stop and see those successes, it is a way that we stop the inner critic that tells us what we didn’t do and what we’re very not very good at. And it is a small way that we start to sort of build our belief. And it’s that belief that helps us do bigger and better things. So, the more regularly you reflect on your successes, the easier it becomes to do the bigger and better things that are really going to drive your development. So, that’s idea number one. Maybe just put it in your diary so you don’t forget to do it.
Idea number two is to start to end your week with an ‘even better if’. So, when we’re moving from one week into another, sometimes we lose the learnings of the week and we just operate on autopilot. And I say that as someone that often does it. But if you can set an intention to ‘even better if’ at the end of your week, it means that you’re going to take a moment, literally just a few minutes, to think about the last few days and think, “Well, what would have made that even better? What would I have been better if I’d done? What would have made that week better if it had happened?” And just pausing to reflect helps you to identify things that you could do differently next week. And these don’t have to be big, dramatic things. I think actually the idea is that they are small things that you can easily take control of. But if every week you’re identifying one, maybe two small things that could make a difference next week, you start to get this compound benefit of your weeks over time. You start to get better, your weeks start to get better, everything starts to feel a little bit better and a little bit more in your control.
Idea number three is to create team learning goals. So, hopefully we all know now that we need to invest time in our learning. It’s the thing that will help your skills stay relevant, your career stay resilient. But we know that it is not easy to do. That is why we are writing a new book to help you. In the meantime, one of the things that we suggest is that you create some team learning goals, because what that leads to is accountability for your learning. It also means the learning is more likely to be added into moments that your team is already together, like team meetings, for example. So, pick a topic, just one topic at a time. Maybe it’s about AI tools, or maybe you want to learn something about an industry that you’re in, or something that a different team is working on, and set an intention to spend time each week learning that thing together. I’d recommend that you commit to it for a month, because I think committing to it for too long can sometimes feel a bit tired. But set it for a month, have learning time each week, ideally in a meeting or a moment that you are already in, and that will create lots of accountability for you as a team.
Don’t forget as well that we have lots of Squiggly Sprints. So, if you want to learn that together, they are all free, they are all on our website, amazingif.com, and you can sign up, sprint, and learn together too.
Idea number four is to start asking for some fast feedback, but specifically on your strengths. It is as simple as asking people, “When do you see me at my best?” And what that means is they act as sort of strength-spotters for you. They help to tell you the situations, the meetings, the conversations where they really see your strengths standing out. And lots of us have blind spots with our strengths. So, asking this question helps to put a bit of a spotlight on them. You can think, “Is that what I want to be known for? Is that how I want to be seen at work? But you can’t start to ask those questions until you start to ask for that feedback. So, make sure you are adding that into your week too.
Last but not least, something that is really going to accelerate your learning is to add in active rest. Now, active rest looks different for all of us. Maybe for you, it might be some form of exercise, it could be music, it could be something creative. It’s what, for you, helps you to switch off from the noise of work and helps you to have a moment for you. And it doesn’t necessarily need to be a long moment. This might be five minutes a day in your lunch break, or maybe you do ten minutes on a Wednesday. But the point is, if it doesn’t go in your diary, it doesn’t get done. And if you are not adding active rest in your week, you are going to be a lot less resilient. And our Squiggly Careers are pretty long, and we’ve got a lot of learning to do. So, anything we can do to add in some resilience and rest into our week is going to help us over the long term.
So, I hope you found those five ideas useful. Let us know what idea you’re going to put into action. You can email us, helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.