🚣🏿 3 key skills for reaching career goals

I’m a sucker for notifications. If there’s a red dot on something, you’d better believe I’m tapping on it right away.

It got to the point where I started pretending to be a lady in Regency England attending to her correspondence, just so I’d stop endlessly making the rounds of my inbox, social channels and Slack. “The stagecoach only comes morning, noon, and close of day,” I'd tell myself. I could check for new messages, other than when I was directly pinged, only when I started my workday, at lunch, and before I logged off.

Amazingly, it worked. I didn’t miss anything urgent, and I couldn’t believe how much time I got back to actually do some work.

When it comes to making career changes, it’s tempting to approach it with the same frenetic energy of endlessly checking for new messages. We comb through job listings, fire off applications, and refresh our inboxes in the hope that an interview invite appears. And the more urgently we feel we need to make a change, the more energy we pour into it.

Without putting some intention into these actions, though, we risk wasting our precious time on the performance of activity, without actually getting any further toward our goals. At a certain point, it’s like pushing your paddle frantically through empty air — you’re doing a lot, but you’re not going to get very far.

Instead, it pays off to actually do the deep work required to move forward, guiding yourself paddle stroke by stroke toward the next bend in your Career River. Today we’ll look at how to focus your energy toward meaningful career progress.

Technique

Proper paddle technique helps conserve energy and prolong your endurance. Poor paddle technique will leave you aching and exhausted before you’ve even had a chance to enjoy yourself.

— 7 Key Skills for Advanced Open-Water Canoeing, Adventures in Good Company