The coming of November tells us that the year really is turning into winter. November signals the real launch into fall's descent into bare branches, chill weather, and the need to pile on the layers more carefully before going out, to stay warm and well. The peaceful warmth, pumpkin spices, and flamboyant colors of fall are giving way to serious deep weather. It is a reminder that years and cycles must have an end, so that they can prepare to have a rebirth.
In your professional life, your November lessons are reminders of the same. In the workplace, this means reassessing where your career is in its lifespan with you. It is time to look at yourself, your career arc, and your workload, and ask: Is your career still serving your growth and your forward path? Or have you, like many others, gotten so immersed in the daily rote survival of your many tasks, projects and directives, that you realize to continue in your role as it is today will be to merely wake up on November 1st of next year a full 365 days from now having made no real progress -- other than grown a year older in the service of your workplace?
The call here is for you to step outside the intense commands of the work week this November and really assess where you are in your job's life cycle, and where your job is in your life cycle. This is true for everyone, but especially true for you as a high performer. That's because due to your nature, you tend to take on more roles within the company, AND, also end up tasked with more in those roles due to your performance capability, making it easier for you to get on that treadmill of work so intensely, you fail to see where it's taking you.
Realize that just like seasons flow from summer to fall to winter, even this current job you're in has a seasonal, cyclical nature. Now is the time to assess. If your job has become so regularly fatiguing or time-consuming that it prevents you from the growth that would take you farther down the road -- is that serving you? If the demands of your work week are such that you spend mornings, evenings, and weekends working hard, just barely trying to stay afloat on your inbox -- when will you draw the line within yourself and insist that this must change?
If the feeling of never being able to focus on the future because you're always and only paying off the intense demands of the now has persisted, especially if for more than six months or a year -- when will YOU take command of this situation and change it? Or -- if you're job is fitting perfectly, amazing, just the right blend of challenges and opportunities -- fantastic, you're right in the sweet spot! Either way, it's good to "clean up the leaves" by doing an assessment.
Your November lessons for the workplace are those reminders that if you don't step out of the sleepwalking created by the ongoing demands of your work week, you may well end up years down the line wondering where the time went.
Your November lessons for the workplace are those reminders that if you don't step out of the "sleepwalking" created by the demands of your work week, you may well end up years down the line wondering where the time went -- while still being in the exact same position, income, or overtaxed role. It is very easy to be so stressed and fatigued by keeping up with the present, that suddenly the present has taken you years down the line.
Your November challenge is to ask whether this is really so, and make wise decisions on what you'll do about it.
Journal and reflect on these questions:
If you do nothing, and just keep living your work life as it is, what will your health be like on this same day next year? Where will your career arc be? How healthy will your body, mind, professional experience be?
If you do nothing, and just keep living life as it is, where will you be on this same day, next year? How much income will you be receiving? Where will you be personally and professionally?
Is this position still serving you, or are you kept so busy with its many demands, that you have no time to grow?
Is this position serving you, or are you kept so busy with its many demands that you routinely sacrifice personal time, family time, exercise, growth opportunities, your health?
What do you need to let go of, to bring this situation back into a balance where YOU can give joyfully as a high performer, but also maintain the level of personal life, educational growth, and professional growth you need to thrive now and in the years to come?
Or, if you're in the sweet spot, great! Reflect on all the talents, skills and healthy habits you need to keep your high performing capacity high and ongoingly expanding with today's ever-advancing world.
Knowing all this, what changes will you begin to make?
As a high performer, your joy is already to excel and exceed and do amazing things in the world. It's who you are, it's the superpower you bring to the workplace. The goal here is to stay aware of whether you're letting yourself get sidetracked by immersion in the day to day, without keeping track of your own age, goals, development, networking, connection, opportunities, and more. With today's workloads being more intense than ever, and your own high-performing drive to be all things to all people as a total rockstar, it can be easy for this sleepwalking to happen unless YOU seriously take the reins.
November's chill, the falling leaves, the coming of snow, the bitterness of the wind, are all natural, healthy signals to remind you that you aren't immortal, that you are part of a natural cycle of life and growth, and that your professional life and career arc need to be observed and managed, pruned with a gardener's eye, making sure that what you give to your organization in your role, is also giving back to you with enough support to follow your true path.
Look with grace, and see the areas you can address, the ones you need to realize the truth of and cut back on, and what you need to focus on to become all you are -- to open to the sweet spot of high performance, the amazing collaborations, creations, profit, products, tech advancement, and more that your skills will bring to a work world that needs them.
Now is the time to #healworklife, as November so generously reminds you.
Keep Growing,
