Understanding the season you're in ❄️🌷☀️🍂

Today we’re going to examine how our careers experience different seasons, and how that changes our approach from the constant productivity demanded by the career ladder.

First, a pop quiz: can you guess which famous person wrote the following?

“I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.”

(Find the answer in this NPR article.)

Surely this person must have written this while they were struggling to accomplish the achievement that’s in the history books? Well, no. It was two years after that.

We all have off days, even after we’ve enjoyed world-changing success. And yet our professional culture of toxic productivity requires continual progress and maximum output. Somehow we’ve left behind more natural cycles of rest and restoration to act like assembly lines cranked to full speed at all times.

To see these expectations in action, notice what people apologize for in their work. Sure, say sorry if you missed an email. But why do we apologize for being out sick? For taking care of our children or elderly relatives? I had someone on a call apologize for preventing her toddler from grabbing a lit candle. I don’t care if we were on the verge of solving world hunger (for the record, we were not), nothing was more important in that moment than keeping those chubby little hands safe. No apology necessary.

The career ladder feeds into this system, requiring regular advancement, no matter the circumstances. But that’s not how the world works, and that’s not how we need to work either. Instead, let’s examine the different seasons we experience along our career journey.

Chart your career seasons

In this exercise, we’ll look at how various phases of your career connect with different seasons of rest, preparation, growth and results. First you’ll need a list of roles you have held (or future possibilities). You can return to the map your river exercise, or simply pull out your resume. Pay particular attention to roles you held before or after major shifts in your career.

You can also zoom in to review the last year or so to get a sense of what season you are presently experiencing in your current role.

Once you have your list of roles ready, review the descriptions below. Pick the season or seasons that were most prevalent for each role. Every job shifts over time. If you find you’re stuck trying to pick just one season to represent a particular job title or time in your career, note which seasons showed up the most and whether they shifted back and forth.

The goal is to see how your career has cycled through different periods. Take a look at the descriptions below and add them to your map however makes sense to you.

Winter - Survive

Winter can be a necessary reprieve and rest following periods of intense change. The famous person I referenced earlier used periods of rest intentionally to work better. Some characteristics of a career winter:

• Environment does not experience much change, frozen
• Limited opportunities to grow
• Success often means consistency, sticking around

Spring - Seed

On the surface, a spring career season looks similar to winter. The difference is that you’re preparing for the busy times ahead, whether by learning or laying the groundwork for a future project.

• Environment requires intentional investments for the future
• Growth may be difficult to see; shifts happen beneath the surface
• Success often means setting yourself up well for what’s to come

Summer - Grow

This is the standard expectation for our professional lives under the career ladder, where our work is visibly bursting forth.

• Environment supports continual productivity
• Steady and apparent growth
• Success is tangible accomplishments

Fall - Harvest

How often do we take time to pause and reap the rewards of our most productive seasons? Chances are, we’re on to the next project without pause. But if we take the time to thoroughly debrief, even unsuccessful work can yield valuable insights for the future.

• Environment encourages reflection
• Growth comes from assessing results
• Success is learning, completed work

***

As you review the seasons you’ve added to your career map, notice how they relate to different periods of your professional life. Overall, is there a balance among times of productivity and times of rest, preparation and reflection? During what seasons have you been happiest in your career? When have you struggled to see value in your work?

The seasons framework acknowledges a fact about our professional lives that the career ladder steadfastly ignores: the larger environment is outside our control, and it changes over time. We respond accordingly in our work. Nobody blames the tree for not producing leaves in the frozen depths of winter. And yet we blame ourselves if we’re not hitting the success marker even in challenging circumstances (pandemic parenting, anyone?).

It also shows that there is a natural rhythm to our work lives we should embrace, including periods where not much is outwardly happening. Nothing but summer can be just as harmful, in the long run, as an extended winter. Luminaries such as Marie Curie, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Lin Manuel Miranda incorporated seasonal variations into their schedules to pursue their work more effectively. And no matter the season you’re in, this exercise shows that it is temporary. Your circumstances will change.

I hope this activity helps you see the seasons in your professional life, and allows you to be realistic in your expectations for success when you are surviving and preparing for future possibilities. There’s no harvest without giving the fruits of our labor the time and space to grow.

Happy navigating,
Bridget

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🔗 Links in this edition:

(Famous Person Name Redacted) And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (NPR)

How Toxic Productivity Is Harming Your Health And How To Find Balance (Forbes)

Discover hidden themes by mapping your career river (Explore Your Career River)

How (Famous Person Name redacted) used rest to be more productive — and how you can too (The Washington Post)

Three Tips for Boosting Productivity With Project Debriefing (Entrepreneur)

To Cure Burnout, Embrace Seasonality (The New York Times)