When I finish a coaching program with someone where the focus has been on helping them overcome challenges and perhaps move forward into a new role, I always check in at the end of the program to help them embed a strategy to help them avoid career risks in the future. Trust me, I’ve learnt a few of these myself the hard way!
Here’s my checklist of the key areas to check in on:
- checking in once a year to ensure your career is enabling your values (otherwise this leads to self sabotage)
- making sure you continue to learn and grow (if we’re not learning and growing, we’re declining, or at the least comfortable, which is dangerous)
- check that you are sharing your ideas and opinions, otherwise this is the start of shutting down who you are
- identify people you trust have your best interests at heart to check your thinking with
- how can you utilise your network to keep you accountable?
- proactively set up meetings with your Manager at the 3, 6 and 12 month mark to make sure expectations are being met
- whenever something doesn’t go according to plan, stop and look at what learnings you need to get from the experience (when you get the lesson, the lesson disappears)
- keep an eye on future trends that may impact your organisation and your job and develop skills that help you contribute and are adding value
- make sure you continue to challenge yourself (it’s better to choose your challenges, rather than have challenges land on your path)
- keep asking yourself “what problems am I solving”, because every job exists to help solve a problem. If you’re not solving a problem then it’s a sign your job is at risk.
So if you need to stop and learn some lessons from past challenges, either reach out to a friend who has great insight, or a career coach …. I know a good one here.
