10 actions to accelerate your career development

Timestamps 

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:28: New Year's resolutions

00:03:39: Action 1: ask a strengths-based feedback question

00:05:18: Action 2: reframe limiting beliefs to limitless beliefs

00:07:50: Action 3: have a curious career conversation

00:10:24: Action 4: figure out your mindset magnets

00:15:13: Action 5: write down your very small successes

00:17:21: Action 6: have some active rest

00:21:14: Action 7: "even better if" your work week

00:25:31: Action 8: overcome your fears

00:30:49: Action 9: design your development - a personal playlist

00:32:00: Action 10: design your development - learn as a team

00:34:37: Final thoughts   

Interview Transcription 

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah. 

Helen Tupper: And, I'm Helen. 

Sarah Ellis: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we talk about a different topic to do with work and discuss ideas for action and advice that we hope will help you, and definitely us, to navigate our Squiggly Careers. 

Helen Tupper: And this is our first episode of 2022! 

Sarah Ellis: Woohoo! 

Helen Tupper: Is that exciting; I don't know?   

Sarah Ellis: Not really! 

Helen Tupper: But if you are listening after your Christmas break, because we know lots of people do listen episode after episode, but some people just listen in a random or Squiggly order, which is fine too; but if you're one of the people who is listening after the Christmas break, we do hope that you feel rested, and I guess this is a January episode, and we recognise that that can feel sluggish, a sluggish start for some people, but also a clean slate for others.  I feel we all come to January in our careers slightly differently. 

Sarah Ellis: It's my birthday.  Will this come out on my birthday?  I think it might do. 

Helen Tupper: Is it just before? 

Sarah Ellis: I think it might be. 

Helen Tupper: Is it your birthday, is it? 

Sarah Ellis: Just before, so I just come at it thinking, "It's my birthday", very selfishly! 

Helen Tupper: Happy birthday!  Hope you have a nice day. 

Sarah Ellis: Thank you. 

Helen Tupper: So, other than Sarah's birthday, which I feel you did also mention, you're very fixated on your birthday being in January; it came up in one of our Instagram videos. 

Sarah Ellis: Well, it's because it's a rubbish time to have a birthday, because it's too close to Christmas, and also early January's not exactly a celebration.  It's grey days, it's pretty cold, so I feel like I have to talk myself into having a good birthday. 

Helen Tupper: So, Sarah is probably one of the sluggish starters, whereas I am an exuberant clean-slater. 

Sarah Ellis: Shocker! 

Helen Tupper: Shocker, what a surprise!  Hello to new listeners, that's probably Sarah and I in a nutshell in our differences sometimes.  But regardless, it is a time when many of us set resolutions for our personal life, for our professional life, and we do that often with good intentions, but know that the outcomes might not go the way that we want.  Research says that 92% of people who set New Year's resolutions never actually achieve them. 

Sarah Ellis: Do you set them?  I feel like this is the sort of thing you would do. 

Helen Tupper: I like to have a word for the year -- 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, me too. 

Helen Tupper: -- rather than an intention.  I feel like the thing that works for me and I come back to repeatedly is starting the year with a word in mind of how I want the year to feel and to focus on.  That works for me. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I think I'm the same.  I've had too many failed resolutions, so actually I am very future-focused, so I quite like a goal and I like the idea of something being different, but I think I've often just set them completely out of context or out of my own reality, and then nothing changes and I've lost love for thinking, "I'm going to set these resolutions" that, to be honest, 3 or 4 weeks later, I've made zero progress on and I just give up on for the next 11 months. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I think framing it around a word or a theme just feels a little bit more flexible.  Maybe that could be a different idea for action, because it's not the one that we put on our list of ten that we have for you today.  So, what we thought was, whether you're coming into January just feeling a bit flat, or you're really, really focused on yourself and your development, we wanted to give you lots of quick things that you can do that can help you to put you at the top of your to-do list.   

So, we have got ten practical ideas for action to support you with your development, and you can do one of these, you can do one a month.  We have actually got a tool that we will tell you about at the end of today's episode that might also help you beyond just the things that we're going to share today; but we just wanted it to feel like a positive start perhaps to your year. 

Sarah Ellis: So, here we go.  I feel like this is almost like the top ten, but we've definitely not thought about them in that way; we've just thought, what are ten things that will be useful whenever you are listening and wherever you are in your career, whether you're just getting started, or maybe this is the last year of your work before you retire or choose to do something different; we hope these are universally useful.  Idea for action one is to start with your strengths, and the action that we're recommending here is to ask three different people the same strengths-based feedback question which is, "Where do you see me at my best?" 

I think this is a really simple, straightforward question.  You're doing a good job of framing your feedback here, which is always I think important, so you make it easier for somebody to give you useful feedback that you can do something with.  And the reason we say three people, not just one, is I think it can be quite helpful to choose maybe three people who work with you in different ways: maybe someone who works alongside you and who knows you really well; maybe your manager; maybe someone you've worked with in quite an ad hoc way; or, maybe even someone you've worked with previously. 

But I think, think quite carefully about who those three people are, and make sure they don't all work with you in the same way, because you'll probably get more of the same versus if you ask three quite different people, who see you show up and use your strengths in different ways.  You'll improve the quality of the responses that you get, and also you'll then improve your self-awareness as a result. 

So, starting with something really positive, and if you don't already ask for strengths-based feedback regularly, I think it's such a useful, simple thing that we can all do that helps us to figure out, does our intent match our impact? 

Helen Tupper: And I think when you do this with a mixture of people, so some people you're working with for the first time, or some people you've worked with for a long time, it's just very interesting to compare the different answers.  I think you spot some blind spots as well.  When I've done this before, I've been like, "Oh, I didn't know that that was what you thought I was good at", and it's just a point for reflection for you in your development. 

So, idea for action number two is to reframe your limiting beliefs to limitless beliefs.  This is something that we talk about quite a lot when we are supporting people with their confidence in their career.  Limiting beliefs are doubts that get in our way.  We all have them.  It might sound like a fear of failure, or a fear of maybe you're not knowing enough, or maybe feeling like you need to be liked in order to succeed at work; or even your age possibly getting in your way.  These limiting beliefs that we carry are often never said to us, so no one's ever said, "Oh, Helen, you're a bit too young to try that out"; they're often a little narrative or a story we've created for ourselves.  The problem with these self-created stories is they stop us doing things that we want to do in our career, they get in the way of our growth. 

So, what we suggest you do, this idea for action, is first of all, you've got to acknowledge what that limiting belief is.  So, next time it pops into your head, maybe put it down on paper so that you can see it.  But what we really want you to do is reframe it from a limiting belief into a limitless belief.  I'll give you a few examples here.  So, maybe you have this limiting belief that, "If I fail, I'm a failure".  That's quite fixed, definitely won't help you move forward.  But what you could do is you could reframe that to a limitless belief that might sound and look more like, "If I fail", or even, "When I fail", because we're all probably going to fail at some point, "I never fail to learn".  The thing you want to focus on is that limitless belief, particularly in those moments, the way your doubts get triggered.  Maybe another one might be, "I don't know enough".  That's quite a common one that we hear quite a lot from people.  Maybe a limitless belief could be, "How I grow is more important than what I know", this idea that we're all focused on learning and being learn-it-alls, and really moving your identity more to that belief than the one that would hold you back. 

Sarah Ellis: You're so good at that.  I think that's one of your super skills, being able to reframe those limiting to limitless beliefs, but probably of the ten that we're going to talk about, I think that's the hardest action.  So, if you do find that a bit trickier, or it takes a bit more time, it's useful perhaps to listen to our first ever ten podcast episodes that were all about confidence gremlins, because I think we gave lots of ideas for action in those episodes about how to do this kind of limiting to limitless beliefs. 

So, particularly if you've got a confidence gremlin or a limiting belief that sounds like one of those episodes, listen to that specific episode, because then it will help you to dive a bit deeper if that feels like that action you want to start with.  Idea for action three is to have one curious career conversation, maybe even every month, with someone you've not met before.  The idea with curious career conversations is those people unlock our thinking, they help us to think differently, they give us new perspectives, you get a window into other people's worlds.  And I think what's really important about those people, and sometimes particularly the newness that I've mentioned, with someone you've not met before, is that just helps us to have a real explorative approach to our careers.  In particular, if this is the year when you're thinking, "I'd like to change careers", and that might be a really small change, or that could be quite a significant change, when you're meeting people that you've not met before, they're sometimes described as "weak ties", and we did an episode last year about Working Your Weak Ties, and we know that when you meet new people, the advantage of those people is that they know things that you don't know, and they know people that you don't know.  So, often they are particularly useful, those connections are particularly useful, if you're thinking about making a change of some description, or if you want to explore something different.  Also, I think regardless of whether you're planning to make a change or not, just spending a bit of time having these meercat moments, when you are popping your head up outside of your day job, and you're just scanning and you're just being really interested, often those are moments that give us really great energy and without even knowing it, they spark new ideas and new energy.   

So, every time I've stopped doing this, I feel that loss; and then every time I've made the effort and said yes, even though these conversations sometimes feel like nice-to-dos, or easy to de-prioritise, I try to now make an effort to think, "No, that's really important, because I will learn something from every single one of those conversations".  If you're interested in having better conversations, I'd really recommend Celeste Headlee's TED Talk.  We talked to her on the podcast previously, and her TED Talk, which is Ten Ways to Have Better Conversations, is one of my favourite career TED Talks, just very specific and short and funny as well, because she's got a really good sense of humour.   

Helen Tupper: I think some people might feel that some of the things they could do with their career development stall when they can't be with people in person, but I think you can have equally effective curious career conversations virtually, and sometimes you can have them with people that you might not be able to have in-person, so don't let a virtual or in-person thing get in the way here, just go for the variety and see which ones feel different.  So, idea for action number four is to figure out your mindset magnets.  So, what we're really trying to do with our career development is to stay in growth mindset as much as possible, because this is when we're really open to opportunities; and even though we recognise that things might not always feel easy, or we might put ourselves into situations or be working with people where it might feel quite challenging, we're able to do that, we're able to go into the new situations, we're able to do the hard things, and we grow more because of it. 

The thing that can get in our way is when we fall into fixed mindset, so when we say, "Well, I can't do that [or] I don't know how to do that [or] I've done that before and it won't work again".  The reality is, we all fall into fixed mindset at some times in our career, and there are different triggers that we're all susceptible to in different ways.  So, what we really want to do is to figure out what your fixed mindset magnets are, so that you are able to sort of protect yourself against them, and then you can stay in growth mindset mode as much as possible.  So, if I think about mine, if I think about in my career when I have fallen into fixed mindset, so when I get a bit, "I can't do it [or] you can't do it [or] we can't do it", just a little bit negative, it tends to be around a lot of process.  So, whenever I'm in a situation that there's an awful lot of process, when it feels quite hierarchical, when it feels quite a negative environment, I think there's some kind of osmosis thing that goes on for me, when I just become a bit defensive and defeatist.  It's not me at my best, and that's the point, really, fixed mindset is not anyone at their best.  So, what I have to do is almost spot when I'm in conversations where that might happen, I will often now flip more to a curious question, rather than being defensive.  So, if people are feeling a bit negative, which is completely normal, not everyone's positive all the time; but rather than letting that affect me and my mindset, what I will do is go back with curious questions to try and move myself forward and stay in growth mindset, rather than fall into fixed mindset, because I'm around some of those things that might trigger my negativity.  What are some of your fixed mindset magnets do you think, Sarah? 

Sarah Ellis: I think the one that I've worked the hardest on is, I often fall into fixed when plans change.  So, I don't like plans changing, basically, and I think that comes from a sense of wanting to be in control.  I like to be in control, and I know that about myself.  So, when plans change, that might be because external factors mean that things change, or something unexpected happens, and obviously that happens all the time, I think that leaves me feeling out of control, and then I become really fixed.  I become fixed in my, "What could then happen?"  I think I become unusually negative for someone who's optimistic and positive most of the time; I can feel quite down about it, and that probably then shows up in the conversations that I have.  So, what actually was most useful about that was to go, "You don't need to beat yourself up".  You know sometimes when you have these fixed mindset magnets, I think knowing that we all have growth and fixed mindset is firstly just going, "Okay, I accept that's not me at my best and that I'm never going to be me at my best, but what can I do in those moments, what can I do differently?"  And part of it is also what you tell yourself, back to the stories that we tell ourselves.  I often have to say to myself in my head, "Oh, but it could be better".  So, yeah, the original plan might not be happening, but this new plan, or our alternative plan, or what we might do instead, because we are thinking creatively, or having to do something maybe differently, maybe it will be better than what we had planned, so not assuming it's going to be worse.  My head goes to, "A plan has changed, therefore the outcome is going to be worse" versus, "A plan has changed, something could therefore be even better.  Who knows where we might go?" 

Helen Tupper: I love that.  And also, because some of our plans might have changed this month, I'm now thinking, "How could that actually help us get to some different outcomes?"  That's quite an exciting frame. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and I think I'm influenced there by the work of Adam Morgan, who's on the podcast later this month, where he talks about A Beautiful Constraint, and how you approach constraints through a lens of curiosity and creativity.  So, what I try to do is think, "Well, I am a curious and creative person", so when those fixed mindsets come my way, try and then bring that best of me to those situations, rather than bringing the worst of me. 

But they don't go away, I don't think you suddenly then become a growth mindset robot, where everything is brilliant all of the time.  I think it's your ability to react and respond to changes, and I've noticed that in myself.  Sometimes I feel proud almost, and people might not even be able to visibly see it, of things change and then I'm much more able to then go with the flow and be more comfortable with that ambiguity which, let's face it, is pretty important, I think, in the last year or so.  So, idea for action number five is writing down your very small successes.  And the way that we would suggest you have a go at this is pick a month, so maybe you want to do it for January, but maybe you're listening to this in August and you want to get started with this in August.  I think the really important point is that you commit to this for at least two, three, four weeks; if you can do a month, brilliant.  And we'd also suggest including your weekends as part of this, because you have very small successes every day and they might be slightly more personal very small successes, and that might be part of your working day; or, they might be more professional ones.  The point is about writing them down, because when we both recognise our very small successes, but most importantly write them down, it helps our brain to process them more fully.  We've talked before about, our brains all have a negativity bias. 

That's okay, because that's our brain protecting us, and that means that we are better at remembering and recalling and spend more time thinking about the things that don't go well.  So, we have to balance out our brains a bit, and they are hardwired to go slightly more in that negativity bias direction, so we need to do a bit of rebalancing.  Doing this very small success exercise, I think, just helps to readdress that balance, helps you to feel optimistic, helps you to see all of your positive progress.    The time when I do this exercise, because I do this exercise repeatedly most years at different points during a year, I do it when I'm feeling maybe my self-confidence feels a bit depleted for some reason, or maybe I'm just finding things hard, not any more specific than that.  It's just, "I feel like this is hard at the moment and I need a bit of help to see some of the good stuff", because perhaps there's either a lot going on, or maybe I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.  And coming back to these very small successes really helps me to build my resilience reserves, and really helps me to get a bit of useful momentum to restart if you've had a tricky time, or a tricky couple of weeks. 

Helen Tupper: So, idea for action number six is all about active rest, and this is something we talked about with Alex Pang on an earlier podcast, and it's really the idea that when we think about how we can be our best at work, I think most people accept that having some form of rest is a good thing.  But actually, some types of rest are more impactful for you than others.  So, imagine a spectrum and on one end, you've got being very restful, so almost meditative or sleeping; and then, the other end of this spectrum, you've got being restless, when you're doing lots and lots of different things all at the same time.  A lot of people think that the best kind of rest is sleep and meditation, and there is an awful lot of value in that, but it's not always easy to do in your workday, and there might be some things that get in the way, and I don't think we should assume as well that everyone finds meditation easy.  I think you and I have both tried that, and it's been quite hard to make that happen for ourselves! 

Sarah Ellis: I don't know what it says about us that neither of us can do it! 

Helen Tupper: But actually, what Alex Pang has shown in his work is that active rest is the highest quality form of rest that you can work on, and this is where you do something that really absorbs your energy and your attention, so it's something that you enjoy doing; when you do it, you're able to shut off everything else, so the noise of work, the distractions that might get in your way, the to-do list that's ever present in your mind. 

There will be some kind of exercise that you can do, some activity that when you do it, you're in the zone, you can find your flow and everything else disappears for a bit of a while.  That's actually a really healthy place for us to spend some time.  The thing that you need to do is work out what is active rest for you, because when we've talked to people in our sessions, and actually this is in You Coach You, we include this, it looks different for everybody.  So for me, for example, something like either hiking up a mountain, which I don't do very often, which really works for me.  Something that I do far more regularly, and I've talked about this a lot in the podcast, is Peloton for me, because I find the music and the intensity of it, it just takes all of my attention, and half an hour doing that is actually some of the best kind of rest that I can do, versus sitting down on a sofa and watching TV; that is actually not high-quality rest for me.  Sarah, what's active rest for you? 

Sarah Ellis: Reading fiction.  It's probably the only example in the last year of the thing that I have continually committed to that does help me.  When I'm reading fiction, and it's the last thing I do in my day before I go to sleep, I'm never thinking about work, I'm always absorbed in the story that I'm reading; it definitely helps me to wind down from my day, so it does definitely feel restful.  But by "active", it doesn't mean that you have to be moving, your brain just has to be fully in the moment with that thing.  And when I'm reading fiction, I don't find actually thoughts of work or other things are going on in my head, I am just reading my book. 

So, it's definitely one of those areas that I think since the pandemic started, I don't have as much of it in my life as I had previously, and I feel that detrimentally, that I miss some of that.  But yeah, reading is the one thing that I hold on to. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I think it's a really good point actually that active doesn't have to be like what I've said.  Mine happens to be quite active, but it's more it's active for your mind, it consumes your mind and allows you to shut off from the other things that might distract you. 

Sarah Ellis: For some people, it's cooking, computer games, gardening. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, painting, playing music, puzzles, yeah.  It's working out those two things you need to know here to really make it work for you: what is this active rest thing for you that's very absorbing; and the second is, how can you be very proactive about making time for it, because you might find that it doesn't always make your to-do list, or it doesn't always seem like a priority, even though it is?  So, think about how can I practically make this part of my week, and what is this active rest that works for me. 

Sarah Ellis: So, idea for action number seven is, "even betting iffing" your work week, which I appreciate isn't a real word, even better iffing your work week, but it was the best way we could think to describe what we're trying to encourage everybody to have a go at here.    So, this is really the act of taking a week and every day, setting an intention to think, "How could I make tomorrow even better than it would be if I did that day without any conscious development?" 

Often when we talk about, you learn the most just through the work that you do, sometimes people talk about something called The 70:20:10 Learning Model, where 70% of what we learn is through doing our jobs day in, day out, that's what we spend most of our time doing; but I always think that learning and that development doesn't happen by accident, we have to be really intentional about making it happen.  One way to do this , to really set your intentions around your self-improvement is, either at the start or the end of the day, depending on what works best for you, I think I would always be better doing this at the end of the day, looking at tomorrow and thinking, "What would it take to even better if tomorrow?"  But I could imagine, Helen, because you're a real morning person, you might do that at the start of your day and think, "How could I be even better today than I would be if I just turned up and went through my day unconsciously?"  That can look like anything. 

So, I was having a go at this, I was thinking, "Right, let's practise what we preach.  What might that look like for me tomorrow?"  It might be, well, for my tomorrow to be even better if, it might be starting with that hard piece of work that I've been putting off, or that presentation that I've been procrastinating over, both very real-life examples there.  Or it might be thinking, "In that meeting tomorrow, I'm going to really focus on improving my listening.  I'm going to really set an intention in that meeting to be there to really actively listen, to really think hard about what people are saying, and create that space for other people to have those conversations", maybe it's that.   

Maybe it's about experimenting with something that's been on your mind for a while that you think, "I want to experiment with asking more questions [or] I want to experiment with working in a different way.  I might be even better if tomorrow, I worked in a coffee shop for two hours".  It can be absolutely anything, but it's getting into this habit, I think, of continual improvement, but in a way that feels really positive and owned by you versus feeling, I sometimes think if you took this the wrong way, it could feel relentless in an unhelpful way.  You might feel the pressure to always feel like, "I always need to be better", and I'm not sure that helps us to be better versus if you are choosing consciously taking control of, "What could even better if look like tomorrow?" I think you have a very different relationship with always getting better.  Sometimes, I think I naturally do this.  But I think if you were writing this down every day for a week and really focusing on it, it would probably just remind you that there are some days that you just go through without that conscious development.  And then, there are other days that were probably a bit better than others. 

Helen Tupper: Also, I think even better if doesn't always mean, "Even better if I do more".  It could be, "I'll be even better if I said no to something and I did less".  I just want to specifically make that point, because I shared something on Instagram over the weekend, an article that Elizabeth Day had written -- 

Sarah Ellis: Oh, I saw that. 

Helen Tupper: -- about when it's time to quit, and I had a lot of messages from people actually saying, "I'm really glad that you shared that, because there's quite a lot of pressure to be doing more and to be doing better", but I think that sometimes doing better can be saying no, or stopping something that's been going on for a while, or recognising when you might need to quit.  So, yeah, even better if does not always mean you have to be doing more and faster; sometimes it might be, "I'll be even better if I slowed down today [or] I took some things out of my calendar, so that I have more time to focus". 

Sarah Ellis: I think the key word for us all to remember if we're doing this one is the "better".  It's, "What is going to make me better?" and what might make you better is using your strengths more, finishing an hour early so you can go to the gym, having a conversation and reconnecting with someone you've not spoken to for a while.  It's the betterness that we want, rather than thinking this is about moreness, which I think is a very different starting point. 

Helen Tupper: So, idea for action number eight is about overcoming your fears.  So, if you feel that there is a fear getting in your way, and this might be linked to the limiting belief, if that resonated with you, then what we really want to help you to do is to overcome it so that you can move forward with you and your development.  We're going to borrow Tim Ferris's work on Fear Setting here, because it's just a nice practical framework that might help you with this.  He's actually got a really good TED talk, which explains this concept in more detail as well.  But the idea is that rather than letting the doubts delay your development, what we're going to do is really address it. 

So, maybe let me talk through an example of how this could work in practice.  So, I think a fear that quite a lot of people have would be public speaking, and what they might do is think, "Well, I have that fear, therefore I'm never going to take the opportunity to speak in public", but let's use that now.  So, what you want to do first of all: name the fear; so, "I have a fear of public speaking".  The second thing you want to do is think how you could prevent that fear from holding you back.  So, that would probably include things like, "Well, I could practise in a really safe environment, so rather than presenting to my whole department at once, maybe I just practise my presentation -- well, first of all, I could do it to myself in front of a camera".  That might feel quite scary, but at least it's just you in the room. 

Sarah Ellis: I think I'd rather not see myself, I think I'd rather do it to other people than I would to see myself, to be honest! 

Helen Tupper: So, that's one option.  Or, maybe you do it just to one person that you trust, or maybe someone that can give you some feedback, and they can really tell you about what's working well, and give you maybe some ideas for improvement.  But that would be a way of preventing that fear from meaning that you never moved forward.  The second thing that you want to do is think about how you could repair it if the worst thing happened.  So, let's say you do do your presentation, but the thing that you're scared of like, I don't know, forgetting your words, or maybe just freezing because someone's asked you a difficult question, maybe that does happen; what you want to do is think about, "Well, how would I respond to it?" so that you're ready for it in advance.  That gives us more confidence. 

So, for example, particularly if you did it virtually, you could have your notes in front of you.  So, worst-case scenario, you do forget what you're going to say; it's okay, because your notes are in front of you, so you don't have to worry about remembering everything.  Or maybe you think, "Well, what if I do get a difficult question from somebody that throws me off course?" you could use the technique of putting the question back on the person; this really helps me.  So, let's say someone asks you a question and you think, "I don't know the answer to that", rather than letting that stall you in that situation, you just go back to the person and say, "Really interesting question, what's your perspective on that?"  That creates you a bit of time to think and it puts it back on them, so you don't have to worry about having all of the answers.  Or maybe it's as simple as having a glass of water, so that you can just take a pause during a presentation to regain your composure.  When you think about naming the fear, how you can prevent it and how you can repair it, you're basically much, much more prepared, and that helps you to feel more confident in that situation. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I think it's really important when you're doing this, and I think this is true for lots of these fears, sometimes when we talk to people about these in our workshops, people's response to fears is preparing more like, "I'm going to try and prepare so much that every eventuality is covered and I know absolutely anything, and there is no question that someone could ask me that I wouldn't know the answer to".  I think, just watch out for that, because it's unrealistic and impossible, but it sometimes feels like our default is we just think almost work harder, work longer, is the default to some of these fears. 

I think actually, the most effective way of overcoming fears is almost acknowledging and accepting some of these things will happen, someone will ask you a question and you won't know the answer, that is going to happen; and so, the much more important thing is going, how do you respond, what do you feel comfortable doing in that moment?    Do you do what Helen did, which is you basically ask the question back to that person?  I often now, with a bit of practice, feel comfortable saying, "That's a really good point of view or perspective, I hadn't considered that".  A bit of vulnerability and a bit of just honesty about saying, "Yeah, that's not something I'd thought of".  I think it's okay that you've not thought of absolutely everything.  Helen Tupper: What this does is it takes the uncertainty away, doesn't it, which is probably going to amplify the fear.  So, it's not denying these things might happen, but it's saying, if it does happen, this is how you would respond to it.  That maybe just gives you back a little bit more control. 

Sarah Ellis: Then, our ideas for actions nine and ten are both about designing your development.  The reason Helen and I are laughing about these is basically, we had an argument before we started. 

Helen Tupper: A debate, a discussion! 

Sarah Ellis: I mean, this podcast, it might not sound like it's taken loads of preparation, but it did, about what we meant by "designing your development" and we figured out we were both talking about two different things.  Our compromise was to both have an action under designing your development.  So, Helen's going to do "designing your development nine", I'll then do "designing your development number ten", and then Helen's going to talk to you about the Squiggly Careers calendar.  That's our compromise, my passive-aggressive compromise!  Helen Tupper: It's like, "Fine, we'll just both do it, Helen, rather than align on it"!  So, my one for number nine is about having a personal playlist for you and your development, and then actually sharing that with your team, so you can build up a collective playlist, or an album. 

Let me explain this.  So, your playlist is, you would set a learning intention for the year.  So, let's say the thing I want to learn more about this year is neuroscience.  Then, what I would do is have my own playlist of something I want to read, watch and listen to this year that would help me learn more about that thing.  So, I think that's great for you, that will provide you a focus for your development, it will also give you quite a lot of diversity for your development, because you've got three different sources and three different ways of learning it.  Big thumbs up for that.  But to make it even better, what I think could be great is if in your team, if you all shared your playlist with each other, I think you've got almost an album there for you and your development.  I might say, "Actually, I'm going to look at what Sarah's playlist is, because she's basically curated some really interesting stuff there that could be really interesting for me if I want to learn something else this year". 

So, I think this is about your personal playlist and then your collective playlist as well.  I would encourage you to create your own and to share it with your team. 

Sarah Ellis: And, rather than or, you could also think about designing your development together as a team.  So, the other way that we were thinking about designing your development is, we often focus a lot on individual development and you and your career; that's what we're here to help you all with.  There's also a lot of value in thinking about, "What do you want to develop in as a team, and how do you want to develop as a team?"  We've started to experiment with this a bit more now with Amazing If and some of the organisations that we work with, where as a team, you together agree we all want to commit to improving maybe a certain skill or a certain capability or a certain behaviour; and let's take feedback as one that lots of teams and organisations want to get better at.  So, as a team, you might say, "We all want to get better at more frequent and fearless feedback, and for the next three months or six months, that's what we're really going to focus on, all of us".   

So, first of all, you've decided on that together, I don't think that's something you necessarily need to get told by your manager or your leader, I think it's asking that question and including people together and thinking, "What feels relevant and right for us in terms of our team and our team development?"  It could be something way more specific than feedback, it might be some sort of coding algorithm, it might be a kind of more technical skillset that you all want to get better at.  Maybe you want to practise doing more hackathons.    So, once you've together agreed on that learning objective, you can then think about, "How do we all like to learn individually?" which will look and feel different.  So, some people might really like to go away and dive quite deep and maybe read a more detailed book, or journals or articles.  Other people might love to learn by being in a live learning workshop, where you're learning with other people.  Maybe you love podcasts.  I think everyone has their own way of learning best. 

The idea is then, as a team, everybody shares, "Okay, we've got this shared objective", but I might be the person who says, "I'm going to go away and listen to three different podcasts", Helen might go and read one book, someone else might think about, "I'm going to see what TED Talks I can find".  Then you come back together and you're sharing what you're learning, so that everyone can succeed, but we've all got this common objective in mind, this common goal that we're all working towards.  So, I guess we're combining that we all learn in different ways, but we've got a shared objective, and how can we learn together, which I think could also be a really nice thing to do alongside your individual playlists. 

Helen Tupper: And obviously that's better; I think they're both better together, because you individually learn, and then you collectively learn different things.  So, yes, obviously they're a duo.  So, we hope that that has been helpful for you.  We have two other resources that will help you follow in this episode today.  The first is the PodSheet.  So, the PodSheet will summarise those ten actions that we've talked through, so that you can reflect on them in your own time and, I don't know, maybe you tick off one at a time, or maybe you share it with other people, but that will summarise what you've heard from us today.  The second thing that we have developed for you is the Squiggly Careers Calendar! 

Sarah Ellis: Sorry, did you want a response there, "Woohoo!" 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, thanks, Sarah!  It is exciting, everybody.  This is a document that we have produced and had designed for you.  It basically takes you through each month of the year and for each month, there is an idea for action, there is a coach-yourself question, we have selected a playlist for you of something to read, watch and listen to, and then we've also put a little bit of a prompt for you at the bottom, so you can think about what action you're going to take.  So, if you want a bit more support with your development, print it off, share it with your teams, maybe it's something you could do together, it could be a learning moment every month for you.  It's there for you to use to support you with your Squiggly Career development this year.  The links for both of those things will be in the show notes.  You can find it on social media, either @amazingif on Instagram, or follow us on LinkedIn as well.  Or, just email us.  If you still can't find any of that stuff, you can always email us.  We're helen&sarah@squigglycareers.com.  

Sarah Ellis: And, for the rest of January, we're really excited by some of the episodes we've got to share with you.  We are going to, probably unsurprisingly, focus on You Coach You, and the way that we've done that is we have taken the different chapters in You Coach You, which include Resilience, Self-Belief, Purpose, Progression, Time, Relationships, and we have sought out an expert whose work we really admire and who's really inspired us in the work that we've done in that specific area, and we've recorded episodes, really short, very specific episodes, with them. 

   Those episodes will be coming out on both the Tuesday and the Thursday, because they're short and sweet, but also we've got quite a few of them, so we're going to put out two a week for the next couple of weeks.  So, every single one of those people are brilliant, and they're just really practical, loads of tools, loads of different techniques, so I'd really recommend having a listen to those, the ones that you feel might be really useful for your career at the moment, and please feedback and let us know what you think. 

Helen Tupper: Thank you so much, everybody, for listening today, and we're back with you very soon.  Bye, everyone. 

Sarah Ellis: Bye, everyone.