by Now What?® Coaching Founder, Laura Berman Fortgang
Four years ago, at a bookstore event, a woman asked a question about a career strategy she was hatching. Her goal was to become a global director for the multinational company she worked for. Her question was about her next move to attain an interim position that would get her to her goal. Immediately, I realized she did not want that interim step but it was what she thought was necessary to get what she wanted. I recommended just going for what she really wanted instead.
I never heard from her again until a few weeks ago. She told me she had been holding that global director position since shortly after she asked that question.
Another woman had come to get some short-term coaching to confirm she had made the right career choice for herself. She was in a pharmacist’s training school. Once we got to work it was clear that being a pharmacist was not what the woman wanted at all! She chose that field because she felt it had job security and she could build a good financial future for herself. The truth was she was miserable and hated every minute of it. She wanted a strong financial future, not a pharmacist’s life.
Both these women and countless others, male and female, mistakenly put a middle step between where they are and where they want to go. Every path we take in life has its stepping stones. No one is going to get a driver’s license and then fly an airplane. You’d need flying lessons and getting the required hours before getting in the air. However, there are other life steps or career steps that are not necessary but rather, mere creations of our own mistaken rules for accomplishment.
If you hear yourself thinking: “ I need to do x to get y” think again. Take out the ‘x’ and re-examine your strategy. The truth is “I want Y”. The question is ‘how do I get that?’. That is what should form your strategy.
Life will tell you if there is indeed an interim step you need, you don’t need to make more work for yourself. Take out the middle step and see how you springboard into opportunity.
I love this article. When I was a federal government employee, it was almost as if I was trained to move only one step at a time. At the last part of my federal career, I had a mentor who helped me see this point so clearly. She wanted me to apply for a certain position and I immediately said that I was not ready because I did not have skillsets a, b, c and she exlaimed “you have everything that you need”. I mastered that job with ease. In a time where so many people face uncertainty about their futures, we need to be constantly coached. Thanks Laura.