Show Notes
Are you curious about today’s topic? Can you actually divine your engineering career destiny?
Allow me to introduce this idea. I want to impress upon you a new perspective on your career: From something you follow to something you lead. From something that happens to you to something that you make happen. Something that you create.
Let me assure you that this is possible.
Three areas I’ll touch on that will enable you to divine your career destiny are:
- Taking charge and steering your career toward your vision,
- Aligning your beliefs, mindsets and habits, and
- Making it easy.
Taking Charge and Steering Your Engineering Career Toward Your Vision
Everyone tells you to have a vision. It sounds so trite. I always struggled with this because I couldn’t envision myself in the role of an accomplished engineer. I didn’t know what that looked like. And I couldn’t see an ultimate achievement that resonated with me.
I’ve since learned some practical ways for creating a career vision. I’ve also discovered some insight that I wish I had back then:
- Your vision is not meaningful if you’re latching on to what others call success.
- Your vision is created by looking not outward but inward.
- Your vision won’t serve you if it isn’t aligned with who you are.
So your first step is to discover more about yourself, your energetic center, what you like and don’t like, what you see others do that intrigues you.
Then rather than adopting a vision that’s oriented around money, achievements or notoriety, design a vision that’s oriented around you.
I know I’m making it sound simple. It’s not. It may take a while. And you’ll revise it many times. But if you start here – if you start with who you are – you’ll end up with a vision you’re much more likely to realize.
Once you have a vision that inspires you, it’s a matter of owning your career and steering it in the right direction toward that vision. You can start owning your career by taking charge of your vision, workload and calendar.
To stay on your trajectory, spend most of your time among your values and passion. Work to your strengths. And reject distraction from your path, i.e., learn to say no to tasks that don’t serve you.
Think big. And then bigger. Ensure you get good feedback, guidance, and mentorship. Be conscious of opportunities ahead of you. And stretch into roles that challenge you.
Aligning Your Beliefs, Mindsets and Career Habits
The second task in divining your engineering career destiny is aligning your beliefs, mindsets and career habits.
Beliefs are what you trust to be true. What you’re in the habit of thinking. And as such they can be changed. Align your beliefs with your vision and your potential.
Embrace enabling beliefs and remove limiting beliefs. Feel and embody all the positive aspects about who you are and who you want to be.
Reject ideas that generate negative energy. Rewrite the stories that doubt or constrain you. Discard messages saying you can’t, you won’t, or you shouldn’t.
Mindset is the set of attitudes that you’ve established based on culture, identity and experience. Align your mindset to work in your favor.
For example, find ways that your mindset is fixed or inflexible and resolve to change that. Cultivate a growth mindset so you’ll be more open to your possibilities – those that you’ve realized and those that you haven’t.
Habits are your regular tendencies and practices. We all know habits can be formed and broken. Exactly howdepends on what works for you. Align your habits with your inspiring career trajectory.
I’ve talked about many examples of good habits in previous episodes. Like, the care and feeding your career, staying in forward motion, and self-advocacy.
Here’s more motivation for aligning your beliefs, mindsets and habits: In the quantum realm, research shows if you think of a situation – past or future – and feel what it feels like to be in that situation, you are more likely to encounter outcomes that support it.
(Learn more about that in this book by Dr. Joe Dispenza.)
Let me say that again in terms of your vision:
If you imagine yourself living your vision and feel what that feels like, you’ll be more likely to encounter outcomes to support that vision.
An Easier Path to Your Engineering Career Destiny
The third task in divining your engineering career destiny is making it easy. How many times have you heard the words “engineering is hard”? How many times have people told you that a successful engineering career means a lot of hard work and struggle?
This is the story we hear over and over. But things don’t have to be that difficult.
As Victoria Castle would say in her book The Trance of Scarcity, let’s change the story. Let’s take the struggle out. Believe you can make it easy and you will. Here are 5 ways to ease your journey toward your engineering career destiny:
- Stop trying so hard and let things come to you. When you find yourself trying to force a solution, let the problem go. Lessen your effort and see what comes to you.
- Do what you love. Delegate work that is outside your energetic center. Experience working in the flow as much as you can.
- Focus less on time management and more on time satisfaction. Don’t try to make time to do more. Rather, do tasks that are fulfilling and time will expand.
- Destress and recharge. Have a few calming practices on hand for stressful situations. And instead of working beyond your capacity to generate ideas, stop, rest and recharge your brain.
- Ask yourself “How can I make this easy?” Simply taking a breath and relaxing your muscles makes any task easier. Ask this question often to conjure countless additional solutions.
By taking charge and steering your career toward your vision, aligning your beliefs, mindsets and habits, and making it easy, you’ll create a strong and inspiring basis for your engineering career destiny.
Most of us want to make a difference in our careers. Most of us would like to know that we’ve reached a certain level of our potential. I want this for you. And my mission is to teach you ways to do this earlier rather than later. So that you’re likely to realize your vision.
My Signature Program is designed to escort you – through learning and gaining perspective – along the path of your career destiny. To align your beliefs, mindset, and habits. And to make it easy. Fill out the application here so we can schedule a discovery call.
Continue to revisit and practice these ideas we’ve talked about today. You’ll reinforce a career destiny that is grounded in you and supports your gifts, talents and preferences. You’re on the road to becoming the renowned expert and venturous leader you’ve always dreamed of.
Next time on Her Engineering Career Podcast we’ll find out if your engineering career could use some spring cleaning. Please join me for Episode 43.
