I was no longer the hero of my story, my job was.
I had to control my own story. Have something where I was the protagonist, not a line item in some Excel sheet. I had to be in control of what I did, and why I did it. It wasn’t easy. I had to start from scratch. I had to define my story. I had to realize my story. And most importantly, I had to LIVE my story.
Long story short, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t turn my story around.
If you are here in search of a “career” coach who will get you your next job, I am afraid I am not the one. There are better "coaches" out there who will help you build a fancy AI-powered resume that will dazzle an AI-powered hiring filter. No worries, you need to do what you need to do. But do ask yourself what does your story look like, and are you really living that story today. Then ask yourself if you are driving your story or someone else is. What happens if that someone else has a script in mind that has a role for you that’s different than what you had in mind.
If you just read this page and went, "Wait a minute! Is my story just a 'job'?" then maybe it is time to take a step back, and craft your OWN story on your OWN terms?
Step By Step. Ferociously!
Am I in charge of my “story”?
Stories are important to us. Stories are what our grandparents and parents told us to make sense of the world. Stories are what leaders tell, and followers follow. Stories are what give us the confidence to face the world. When you meet a stranger, how else do you introduce yourself, but with a story?
Without that story, nothing makes sense.
For the longest time, my story started with my name and where I was from. If it was not a professional setting, maybe I would say I was married with kids. But almost always, within the first few sentences, my story shifted to what I did for a living. In other words, where I worked and what my job title was. And it went on and on about my professional accomplishments. I don’t think I was unique in this. We are conditioned such that what we do for a living is an ingrained part of our identity. People have their own names associated with an occupation. We cannot think of ourselves beyond our job.
Turned out that my story would go wherever my job took me. Everything work related felt personal. My “job” defined my successes and my failures. I would fight every small battle at work, as if it was a character assessment. I would work 18-hour work days, or check emails on vacation or during my children’s school plays.
Without that job, I had no story to tell.