How To Use Your Career Mindset To Make Progress
Assata Omowale is a Career and Emotional Intelligence Coach. She is the owner of CPR Management Coaching, a company that supports committed mid-career professionals in designing their own career path and shape their success using Emotional Intelligence, Positive Intelligence and Neuroscience tools.
You’ve probably heard a lot about "mindset" lately. Usually, it’s about how some people believe their abilities can change with practice (a "growth mindset" – Carol Dweck) while others think they’re stuck with what they already have. But did you know this idea can also apply to your job? Here, let's talk about your career mindset. What do you believe about your career or work? How has these ideas helped you? Are they “really” true? If you’re ready, let’s go!
What is a career mindset?
I define a career mindset as the way you think and feel about your job or career. It includes:
Your beliefs about your work: What you think you can or can’t do in your job.
Your attitude towards your work: How you feel about your work – happy, excited, or maybe nervous.
Your mood at work: What’s your general feeling: pleasant or unpleasant, highly energized or depleted?
Your habits at work: The usual thoughts that come to your mind about work (like those Sunday night worries about Monday).
Your philosophy or ideology about your work: Your basic ideas or knowledge, truths, morals and meaning of work for you.
Think about it: Do you believe you can get a better job or do more at work? Do you believe you can really progress, make an impact or speak up? Whatever your answer, right or wrong, real or imagined that’s part of your career mindset!
Why is a career mindset important?
Your career mindset (mind habits) can shape how you act at work and how you experience work. If you believe you can succeed and grow, you’ll be more likely to take steps to make that happen. But if you think your job doesn’t matter or that you can’t do more, you might not try as hard or even be motivated. By simply becoming clear on what this mindset is you can understand if it’s holding you back or moving your forward. By knowing and improving your career mindset can help you:
Enjoy your job: Feel happier and more satisfied.
Ask for what you want: Be confident to ask for promotions or new opportunities.
Do your best work: Feel proud of your contributions.
Progress: Find new ways to get through obstacles
If you don’t know your career mindset, you might find yourself:
Depending on others: You give up your agency. Other people decide what you can do instead of deciding for yourself.
Giving up easily: Stop trying when things get tough because you don’t believe you can succeed.
Staying stuck: Believe stories like “I can’t do that” or “That’s not my job,” even if they aren’t true.
Unfulfilled and resentful: It can mean not giving yourself the opportunity to reach your highest potential leads to regret and blame because your blind to other options.
What can you do now?
Ask yourself: What do I believe about my job? Do I think I have a career?
Notice your mood: How do you feel at work? Happy? Anxious? Bored?
See your value: Think about how your work helps your company. What good things do you bring to the table?
If your dream is to progress one of the most efficient ways is to change your mind, this means exploring, experimenting, challenging old beliefs, and creating new ones that gets you moving and help you thrive.
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Assata Omowale, Career & Emotional Intelligence Coach
Assata Omowale is an awareness evangelist who is always excited about the power of self-discovery and self-management to facilitate personal growth, confidence and influence. As a Career & Emotional Intelligence Coach and an expat she has a keen interest in identity, people and how they function, consciously or unconsciously within spaces. She loves supporting highly skilled mid career professionals over 30 trapped in supporting roles to make bold moves in careers they love with confidence and grace.
