Did you know that research has proven what we think and how we attach emotions to these thoughts has the ability to literally change our brains and the actions we take?
Even if you did know this, you’re probably wondering, ‘What does this have to do with my career?’.
Everything.
I wanted to take the time to talk about given recent events with COVID19 and the fear surrounding job stability. Now more than ever it’s important for you to understand how your attitude and perceptions can have a positive and negative impact on your career.
This information is proving to us just how important it is for each of us to build and improve our career narrative.
Career Narrative? What’s That?
A career story is how you’ve interpreted life events that have shaped your career. Your career narrative is your interpretation of these events as they play over and over again in your head is your career narrative.
Why is this important to career success? Your career narration plays a significant part in your ability to understand and uncover your professional aspirations.
In my years of experience, I’ve come to understand that there is a very clear and divisive divide between professionals who achieve their big career goals, and the ones that don’t.
The deciding factor?
Those with positive career narratives excelled while those with negative outlooks did not.
Clear Signs Your Career Narrative Is Negative
To fully understand your career narrative, you should write it out. While this may seem like a silly exercise, it’ll help you to see right away if it’s working against you. While you write this out, here are some words that are a clear indicator it’s negative:
- Unemployed
- Wrong
- Mistake
- Fired
- Lost
These words evoke negative emotions, and according to science, this could actually be putting our bodies in a weaker state.
You wrote out your story and identifies some negative words, that’s great! This means you’re able to pinpoint the negativity and eliminate them from your narrative.
Take Control & Rewrite Your Career Narrative
This is a lot easier than you may think! To give you an example, I’m going to take a few of the negative words I mentioned above and show you how you can rework them in a positive light.
- Wrong. Instead of saying wrong try using the phrase ‘not right’. For example, “The position was not right for me culturally”
- Unemployed. This is an ugly word that I wish I could ban. Replace it with, ‘between jobs’. For example, “I’m currently between jobs”.
- Failed. This is an extremely negative word you should steer clear of. Use ‘Powerful Experience’ instead. An example of this would be; “I was able to use the powerful experience at my last job to improve upon my skill sets.”
While rewriting your career narrative a good rule of thumb is to replace those negative terms with emotionally neutral words or phrases like the ones above. It’s important to look at your situation through an objective eye as it will help to shift it into a positive one.
Take a look at your resume and make sure that you’re not using any negative words in it. While you’re updating your resume, be sure to download this free resume mistakes cheatsheet to make sure you’re not harming your chances of getting hired.
If You’re Serious About Achieving Career Success, You Must Take Responsibility
In order to fully change your career outlook, you have to take ownership of everything that has happened in your career thus far (good and bad).
I’ll be honest, this is a hard step for some to take. It may seem like I’m telling you to take the blame for things that were out of your control (having a bully for a boss). Having a mean boss certainly wasn’t your fault, however, allowing it to crush your career confidence and happiness was. If you are looking for other ways to grow your career, check out my free masterclass to learn the #1 way you can destroy your career in 2020, and how you can avoid it!
Nothing worth having is easy and this is especially true when it comes to your career. Once you take ownership you will see a drastic shift as you stop focusing on the negative experience, and focus on how you can use to better yourself.
P.S.S. If you don’t think a membership to my company’s career coaching service is for you (yet).
At Work It Daily, we put together the following free career growth tools for you:
- A complete job search checklist.
CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD the pdf file.
- A list of the 18 most common interview questions.
CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD the pdf file.
- Free cover letter samples.
CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD the pdf file.
- Guide to changing careers.
CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD the pdf file.
- Masterclass on how to avoid common job search mistakes.