Finding the bumble-balance

Are you looking for more fun, vitality and joy in your work? Jasbindar Singh has some suggestions.

ARE YOU looking for an injection of new energy, fun and vitality in your current role or perhaps you are interested in a new role that will offer this more?

Are you ready for a new project or wanting stretch in your current job? Do you feel a bit staid and, dare I say, a tad bored, with where you are currently?

These feelings are certainly normal. We all go through such phases especially when what started out as a cool job loses its spark and becomes mundane.

If you are going through such a phase, here are some questions from my book Get Your Groove Back which might help: • What are some activities or areas of work that interest and bring you joy? • What is something you have an interest in but have not pursued in any way? • What is one thing you might do if

you were not afraid? • What is one thing you might do if

money was not an issue? • What is one thing if you did differently in your work life, it would have the most impact? • What is a small thing if you did differently or introduced in your personal life, it would have a great impact? I also really value Herminia Ibarra’s work. The INSEAD professor in organisational behaviour and leadership and learning, offers an interesting approach on career matters in her book Working Identity: Unconventional strategies for Reinventing Your Career.

She prefers “test and learn” to introspective self-analysis. She says the way to figure out your next career is to ‘ bump into it.’

Her key question is “What maximises the chances that you will encounter it, then recognise it as a real possibility and develop it?”

The three practices that form the basis of this strategy are: • Craft experiments: Devise ways to sample a new role without giving up your current job. Take courses in a field that interests you and experience some aspect of that field. • Shift connections: Expand your network of contacts beyond your usual circles. Reach out to people who do work that you are interested in for advice and information. • Make sense: Create a story that you can tell yourself and others about what you are trying to do and how it connects the old you with the person you wish to become. Don’t be afraid to revise it regularly as you progress and in your growing understanding of where you want to go. Anne (not real name) put it like this, “I have bumbled into things that have allowed me to be me. At times, what I thought would not count for much turned out to be really exciting and vice versa. I have also taken some very planned decisions. I think there is a “bumble balance” there somewhere.”

A couple of reflective questions for you: 1) Imagine your best career/ life balance manifested. What does this look/sound/feel like? 2) Which practice from above could you engage in more? Jasbindar Singh is a leadership coach and business psychologist. www.jasbindarsingh.com