Career Advice You Should NEVER Take

I was coaching a client recently when she said, “My big mistake was lowering my goal”.

Curious, I asked her to tell me more.

She explained that she had been in a place of career confusion, not quite sure which direction to take and so she went to someone that she admired and asked for her advice.

My client had a big career dream. She had been making progress on the dream, though not as quickly as she had hoped and there were obstacles. Because of this, she began to doubt her big dream, her decision to go after it, and if it was even possible.

In the conversation with this mentor, the advice she was given was to think smaller.

And on the surface that wasn’t necessarily bad advice. Her mentor saw the cause of her confusion coming from having such a big career dream that she thought she wasn’t able to clearly see her next steps.

But what she was experiencing was all part of the process of pursuing a big career dream. It was exactly what was meant to happen.

It was her dream asking her to recommit.

What is happening????

She was right smack dab in what I call the liminal phase in pursuit of your career dream.

That place between who you’ve been and who you’re joyously becoming.

You have comfortably been the caterpillar.

Chomping your way through your career. Climbing from this branch to that. Doing what’s expected. What you have always done.

Then one day you felt an urge for something new. To become someone new. To have a new career.

You have a vague vision of yourself as a butterfly.

You feel inspiHER’d.

You begin the process of change.

Taking action towards your big dream and BAM, you find yourself wrapped in a place so foreign, so uncomfortable, so confusing that you begin to question your career dream.

You begin to have moments of doubt. You think your career dream will never come to pass. You will begin to consider other possible career options like staying in the soul-sucking career you are in or working at Starbucks.

This is also when someone will suggest you think smaller AND you believe it.

When a caterpillar is beginning to emerge from its cocoon, its’ dream of being a butterfly in sight, it needs to beat its wings hard to build up the muscles it will need to fly.

If someone were to step in and tell the caterpillar , “Don’t work so hard. What are you thinking to have such a big dream? I have a suggestion. Do less. Think smaller. Let me pull back your cocoon for you.“

The caterpillar will die.

It seemed like good advice to think smaller, do less, create a different dream. That by thinking smaller this would clear up any confusion but, when you’re in a liminal phase, don’t resist it. Accept the fact that you’re going to feel confused, that you’re going to try things that don’t seem to work.

DO NOT dream smaller.

Recommit to your dream!

Stay focused. Listen only to those who are in support of your dream.

Flap your wings hard, and build the capacity and knowledge you need to carry you into your big dream.

Transform from who you were into who you were always meant to be!

Need a branch of support under the cocoon of your career dream? I have only 3 spots open for private coaching before I move to a waitlist. Let’s talk today. Sign up HERE.