#What is a ‘career’?

To different people, a career can mean different things. It is shaped by context (what stage of life you’re in) and experience.

For me, the best metaphors which describe my career right now are:

  • Ascending: I want to climb as high as I can
  • Learning: It is important to be able to exploit opportunities which allow me to pursue my interests
  • Expressing: Can I be myself?

These are where I am. The beginning of my career was probably more about:

  • Learning: It is important to be able to exploit opportunities which allow me to pursue my interests
  • Expressing: Can I be myself?
  • Growing: Become a more rounded person

And being more rounded is definitely still important. I suppose right here right now, I just want to see how high and how fast I can soar, before I start crashing down. I say this because it is too comfortable right now.

Resilience

Robertson Cooper resilience questionnaire results are based around:

  • Confidence
  • Purposefulness
  • Social Support
  • Adaptability

Confidence

What hinders:

  • Worry: generally apprehensive and worry about things going wrong
  • Distress: prone to feeling sad or discouraged
  • Enthusiasm: tend to be too serious rather than light-hearted

What helps:

  • Anxiety: embarrassment is not a problem for you
  • Pressure: feel confident about your ability to cope with stress

Neutral:

  • Compliance: Generally confident in yourself in standing your ground on issues that I feel strongly about
  • Modesty: Generally confident, though there may be other times when you feel other people are more skilled or successful
  • Resourcefulness: Confident in your own capability

Purposefulness

What hinders:

  • Assertiveness: You prefer others to do the talking
  • Activity: The pace is usually measured rather than energetic

What helps:

  • Ambition: desire for results suggests clarity of purpose and direction
  • Self-Discipline: Having strong self-discipline will help you get on with what needs to be done and follow through to finish what you start.
  • Deliberation: You generally consider what you want to achieve and how to go about it before taking action.

Neutral:

  • Adventurousness: you enjoy excitement though it can make me unfocused
  • Aesthetics: Plays an important part of your life
  • Social values: you have liberal views provide you with a clear set of values, as long as you do not see everything as relative.
  • Sense of duty: generally conscientious about adhering to ethical principles and fulfilling obligations

Adaptability

What hinders:

  • Frustration: Being prone to feelings of irritability and impatience may make it difficult for you to deal with problems and everyday frustrations in a calm and flexible manner.
  • Emotional Awareness: You pay relatively little attention to emotional reactions, and may overlook some of the clues you need to adapt to changing situations.
  • Sympathy: Your views are driven by logic rather than sympathy; this may help you to take a pragmatic approach but could also lead to a lack of flexibility.

What helps:

  • Impulsivity: Good self-control will help you to respond to situations in a constructive, adaptable way.
  • Variety: Being open to variety and enjoying new and different activities will help you adapt to change and new situations.
  • Ideas: Your interest in intellectual challenges and new ideas will help you to adapt to different situations and demands.

Neutral

  • IMAGINATION: You are likely to spend time thinking about future scenarios but may not focus enough on immediate practicalities.
  • Order: Your low need for order and structure suggests that your approach will be flexible, although you may need to be more organised in adapting to changing situations and demands.

Social Support

What hinders:

  • Warmth: You tend to be formal and reserved in your relationships, and may keep your distance from some of the people who could provide useful social support in difficult times.
  • Sociability: You are likely to rely on a relatively small group of people for your social support; you may be inclined to draw mainly on your own resources rather than turning to others in difficult times.
  • Trust: You are rather sceptical of other people’s intentions, and careful about who you trust; this could limit your ability to draw on support when you need it.
  • Consideration: A concern for protecting your own interests may affect the extent to which others are willing to provide you with support when you need it.

What helps:

(Nothing!)

Neutral:

  • Straightforward : Being generally open in what you are prepared to say to others should help you to establish and draw on supportive relationships.

Workplace Thoughts

These revolve around the following six sections:

  • Informed and Equipped
  • In Control
  • Balanced Workload
  • Well-Managed Change
  • Collaborative Relationships
  • Sense of Purpose

Likely positives for you in different situations

Informed and Equipped

In situations where information or resources are limited:

  • Your active imagination and your interest in new ideas will make it easier for you to come up with innovative, workaround solutions to alleviate the situation.
  • You may welcome the opportunity to try out different approaches or ways of achieving your objectives.
  • Your confidence in your own resourcefulness will help you to respond in a resilient way.
  • Your flexible approach should help you to manage with what you have, as long as you are not too disorganised in how you go about it.

In Control

In situations where there are significant obstacles to the amount of control and influence you have over how your work is done:

  • Your self-assured style could make it easier for you to increase your influence and involvement, for example by gaining others’ confidence and trust.
  • Your ability to exercise good self-control over your own actions and responses should decrease the risk of feeling out of control and stressed.

Balanced Workload

In situations where there are significant pressures on your workload or work life balance:

  • Your confidence in your ability to cope will be positive as long as you recognise when you are reaching your limits and take action to address the situation.
  • Being careful to guard your own interests will ensure that you do not take on too much just because you are trying to be helpful.
  • Seeing the situation from a rational perspective rather than feeling sorry for others should help you address firmly any performance issues that may be adding to workload problems.

Well-Managed Change

When organisational change is creating a high level of challenge and uncertainty:

  • You may see the change as something of an adventure, even if there are aspects of it you are less positive about.
  • Looking ahead and imagining different scenarios should help you to feel better prepared for what might happen.
  • You are likely to be energised by the opportunity to try new activities or approaches, even if you are concerned about other aspects of the change and the way it is being managed.
  • Your interest in new ideas and a wide range of issues should help you to respond to the challenges in a flexible and creative way.

Collaborative Relationships

In situations where work relationships are not as collaborative as might be expected:

  • Your self-assured style and lack of defensiveness will help you to manage relationships in a resilient and constructive way.
  • Exercising self-control and self-discipline will help you to avoid creating more pressure by upsetting others, and to feel good about your own management of the situation.

Sense of Purpose

In situations where goals are ill-defined and you need to create your own sense of purpose:

  • Your need for stimulation and excitement suggests that you will look for something to keep you interested and occupied.
  • Creating time and opportunities to follow your aesthetic interests is likely to help you to remain positive.
  • Your need for variety should stimulate you to identify and pursue different activities.
  • Your desire to achieve will motivate you to identify and work towards challenging goals.
  • You are likely to exercise self-discipline in applying yourself to tasks and completing what you believe needs to be done.

Overall Thoughts

In any difficult situation:

  • Although you may worry, you appear to have developed some good coping strategies that will help you to manage.

Possible areas for you to work on

Informed and Equipped

In situations where information or resources are limited:

  • You may rely too much on others to deal with the situation, rather than taking the lead yourself and putting energy into seeking out what you need.
  • You need to make sure that you have good strategies for getting organised and planning how to make the best use of what you have.

In Control

In situations where there are significant obstacles to the amount of control and influence you have over how your work is done:

  • There is a risk that you may become discouraged and overlook aspects of the situation you can do something about.
  • You need to make sure you are sufficiently assertive and energetic in your efforts to overcome these obstacles, rather than sitting back and letting others take the lead.

Balanced Workload

In situations where there are significant pressures on your workload or work life balance:

  • You may need to make more effort than usual to engage with other people, so that you can share the load where possible.
  • You will need to manage your energy carefully, doing what you can to achieve a good balance between activity and time out and making it clear to others that you are fully committed but need a more measured pace and a more balanced lifestyle.
  • Paying more attention to how you are feeling should ensure that you recognise when the pressure is becoming too much for you to cope with.

Well-Managed Change

When organisational change is creating a high level of challenge and uncertainty:

  • Actively managing your anxiety will be important to avoid worrying unduly about what might happen.
  • Your style tends to be rather serious, and a more light-hearted approach could help you to respond positively in times of change.
  • A sceptical view of human nature could lead you to become unduly concerned about other people’s intentions in introducing or responding to the changes.

Collaborative Relationships

In situations where work relationships are not as collaborative as might be expected:

  • You may be too quick to become frustrated or irritable and this could escalate the situation, putting you under further pressure.
  • Taking a more active interest in other people should help you to manage difficult relationships by understanding different perspectives and building rapport.
  • Your reluctance to trust other people could lead you to take a rather pessimistic perspective of difficulties in work relationships.
  • Although your hard-headed attitude is likely to add to your personal resilience in some ways, it could put you under unnecessary pressure by making it more difficult to gain others' support.

Sense of Purpose

In situations where goals are ill-defined and you need to create your own sense of purpose:

  • Challenging yourself more to use your initiative will help you to set the direction for yourself as well as for others.
  • You need to be careful that your preference for a more relaxed pace does not prevent you from seeking out and pursuing challenging objectives.

Overall

In any difficult situation:

  • There is a risk that you will put yourself under additional pressure by responding with greater impatience or annoyance than is warranted by the situation.
  • You need to make sure that you put enough effort into using your initiative, resolving problems and improving the situation for yourself and others.