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Feeling like you’re trapped in the wrong job can be suffocating, making the moment you clock out feel like sweet relief—only to be drowned out hours (minutes?) later by the crushing realization that soon enough, you’ll be back.
That’s no way to live, and Jon Acuff’s new book, Do Over, proves life doesn’t have to be that way. He starts with a simple premise, that every career change involves falls into one of four categories—a career jump (think: promotion), career opportunity, career bump and career ceiling—and that each one can be combatted by investing in a particular skillset. If you’ve hit a career bump, for example, and have been laid off or fired, you’ll need to focus on improving your relationships, because your connections will be your greatest asset in scoring a new (better!) job.
The book is a manual for navigating any professional change, but two takeaways in particular really struck me in that “whoa—hold up and let me grab my pen, because this needs to be underlined, circled and possibly tattooed on my arm” sort of way:
“If you don’t sharpen [your skills], they’re useless. More than that, they get a little scary because in the absence of use, fear takes root.”
As a writer, the longer I go between stories, the harder it is to take to the keyboard and actually punch out a story. I hem and haw, panic and pound the delete key more often than the space bar. I’ve got to be willing to exercise this skill daily, even if it means afternoons of less-than-stellar scribblings.
“Fear is an amazing storyteller.”
Acuff’s anecdote captures this perfectly: How many times have you received a “let’s talk on Monday” email from your boss on Friday, then spent the whole weekend anxiously scripting that future meeting, running through any possible complaints your boss may have and how this could potentially lead to terrible, awful, no good, very bad news? *Raises hand sheepishly*
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be prepared for the meeting; it’s just that you shouldn’t let worry commandeer your brain, replaying the same you-suck-at-everything-you-big-failhead tape over and over. Consider the worst-case scenario, then ask yourself what the most likely scenario is. Prepare for the meeting, and then refuse to play out the scenario any further, because the more you do, the more words your imagination starts putting in your boss’s mouth. You start shaping your attitude around a scenario that isn’t even real or confirmed yet, and it sucks the joy right out of every second leading up to the meeting, and affects the way you respond to everything during it, too.
You can find Do Over at most major bookstores and on Amazon.
This post is part of Life Between Weekends’ Tuesday Takeaway series. Every Tuesday, we’ll share the most compelling insight we’ve gleaned from a book, movie, tour, documentary or article to inspire you during the workday.