Squiggly sprint 24: Day 16 - Energy

Day 16 of the SquigglySprint, and the topic is energy.

Sarah and Helen made a point in the podcast today to talk about the different things that energize them. It’s a well documented fact from their podcasts that one of them is an extrovert and gets energy from socializing and seeing people. The other is definitely more for the long walks on their own (Listen to the podcast to find out which).

It’s often said in career development that there are things you are good at, and things that give you energy. 

If you are good at something, but it doesn’t.give you energy, then it’s something that you can likely do for a job, but won’t propel you. You likely need something else in your life to make you feel fulfilled. It can perhaps be one small part of your job that you know you need to be able to do to support the things that energize you.

If you get energy from something, but you aren’t good at it, then it’s something that you should maybe not bank on for a career. 

If neither, well….

The best thing to find is something that you are good at, and also propels you along. This is getting close to the old adage of if you do something that you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. Even better if this is something that pays well.

As I said to someone recently, sometimes it’s about realizing that you are pushing the rock uphill, like some sort of career sisyphus. If you can find a way to push the rock so it starts to roll downhill with little effort, then you get far more progress.

In my case, the whole Squiggly community is a great example. I didn’t set out to deliberately get involved, but I get loads of energy and enthusiasm from the weekly podplus sessions, and it’s now one of my non-negotiables in the week. Because of this, I’ve listened to 200-odd podcasts, and joined in 200-odd zoom meetings. That’s 200 hours of focussed time on career development, that is giving me great boons in my career, letting me help people by offering advice where I can, and it legitimately doesn’t feel like effort to me.

https://youtu.be/8RhsW6WoQbw