In a workplace where there are few certainties and even fewer guarantees, learning to be a career resilient worker is a sound strategy.

What Is Career Resilience?

Career resilience means taking greater responsibility for present and future employability. It means understanding what you are good at doing, what you want to do, and then communicating your skills, abilities, values, and goals to the clients or companies you work for.

Awhile back, Mark found himself in a dilemma familiar to many people. After ten years with an international computer company, he began to question whether his personal goals and the goals of the company were in sync.

“I thought I liked what I was doing.  I liked my co-workers and clients and the company had been very good to me. I just felt this restlessness and uneasiness I couldn’t put my finger on.”

These feelings are common for people Mark’s age. At 33, he was passing through what is called the Age 30 Assessment – one of the 6 Turning Points individuals regularly go through as part of natural growth and development in the adult life cycle. The priority here is to evaluate events up to this point and decide what course to set for the next phase – usually the next ten years.

Mark paid attention to the dissonance he was feeling and decided to be proactive. People confronted with one of life’s critical Turning Points typically handle change in one of three ways:

• Group 1: Hold the road. Endure.
• Group 2: Change anything and everything. Now!
• Group 3: Take time for careful introspection, develop a long-range plan, implement.

Careful Introspection

Mark chose introspection. He worked with a Highlands Certified Consultant and took the Highlands Ability Battery.

“Like a lot of people, I guess, I had never taken the time to sit down and focus on ‘me’ – what I care about doing, the skills I enjoy using, the pace, the setting, the kinds of people I like to be around.”

“I came in with an open mind about outcomes. I did not want to force any agenda. I just wanted to see what came out at the end of all this work.” Mark discovered that he “…was doing the right kind of work, but in the wrong environment for me. My natural abilities revolve around creative problem solving, strategic thinking, and written and verbal communications. I’m an extrovert and place a high value on building long-term, added-value relationships. I like creative approaches to solving problems.”

Our experience shows that people who approach life’s Turning Points with a blueprint do measurably better. The blueprint shows what they are looking to attain and a plan on how to get there. In the critical areas of satisfaction, balance, and success, people with a blueprint have a clear and marked advantage over those who either hunker down and gut it out or those who throw their lives up in the air and attempt to change everything all at once.

Are you ready to create your blueprint? Find a Highlands Certified Consultant to get started.