Welcome to the Progression Series: 4 podcasts in which I challenge the myth that career progression is only about promotions and pay rises. I introduce you to the 4 pillars of career progression that provide the best motivation for solving your Imposter Syndrome and are the key to making your experience as a lawyer so much easier and more fulfilling.
In this episode:
The 4 Pillars of Career Progression
Progressing your career is about more than a new position, a new job title and the accompanying pay rise. These have their value. But unless they are accompanied by progression in other areas, their impact on your day to day experience and performance as a lawyer will be limited. You just find yourself facing the same challenges and problems you did before, only now at a level where the stakes are higher and you have less support.
How is this progress?
Real career progression goes deeper and it lasts SO much longer. It’s not just about your career. It’s about progressing who you are in a way that impacts every aspect of your life as a lawyer – in a positive and powerful way.
Enter the 4 Pillars of Career Progression.
The 4 pillars of Career Progression are the 4 principal areas of lawyer life that determine how happy and successful you are in your work. They are:
- Recognition
- Confidence
- Balance
- Fun
These pillars are an essential feature of career progression. It only counts as progress if one or more of these areas is in a more advanced state than it was previously. Specifically, if you achieve one or more of the following:
- More recognition
- More confidence
- Better balance
- More fun
You don’t have to advance all 4 pillars in order for it to count as career progression. But the more pillars you progress, the more impactful and sustainable your career progression is. Over the next 4 weeks we’ll be taking a close look at each of the 4 pillars.
This week’s focus: Better Balance.
When you have Imposter Syndrome, thinking of career progression only in promotion terms can put you off the idea of progression altogether. You consider the heavier workload and the increased level of responsibility. You consider that you’re someone who already overworks and struggles with work life balance. So you decide you don’t want to be a partner, for example, because that will only make things worse.
So, you pass up opportunities for progression thinking that to do otherwise would give you worse balance.
But the opposite is true.
When you don’t progress your career, your career plateaus and your way of working does not evolve. You keep working the way you always have – overworking, overthinking, playing small and self-sabotaging. There’s no incentive to change these unhealthy work habits if all you’re doing is staying where you are.
When you commit to progressing your career this changes. It forces you to take a long hard look at your Imposter Syndrome and to recognise that the way you’ve been trying to manage it all these years is what is holding you back. And this is what motivates you to change.
One of the unhealthy work habits you’ll be motivated to change is overworking. All that quadruple checking your work, trying to make everything perfect, refusing to delegate… as you start to tackle these behaviours something magical will happen. You’ll become more efficient and productive. For example, you’ll:
- Start setting boundaries (especially with yourself)
- Stop labouring over emails and constantly rechecking your work
- Delegate more and ask for help.
What all of this adds up to is less time wasted on work that doesn’t add value. Which means less unproductive work, less stress and ultimately, therefore, better balance.
Progressing your career isn’t about the promotion. It’s about progressing yourself.
Discussed in this episode:
- How you get there is how you stay there
- The value of progress
- Measuring your progress towards better balance
In Imposter Syndrome Coaching you pick one of the 4 pillars of career progression as your main goal and we work through the 4-step process for solving your Imposter Syndrome to help you achieve it. Enrolment for the next class is coming soon. Don’t miss the announcement. Join the waitlist now.