Hi Friends,

We’re somehow days away from February - nearly 1 month into 2024. Whether you set resolutions, intentions, core desired feelings or are just taking things day by day, I’m curious..

Some people I know are riding the thrill of progress made towards their 2024 goals/intentions/resolutions but most people I know are feeling a bit low & stuck in “already” being behind for the year - resolutions already “failed” (your words - not mine🙃), winter blues decelerating the New Year goals we wrote in our more manic resolution setting state.

A lot of us have ignored Journey’s advice and stopped believing in ourselves.

So, I feel the need to tell you..

You haven’t failed.

You’re not behind.

You could just use a shift in routine, environment, beliefs - whatever feels stuck.

A personal example: I’m a Florida Native and have been blessed (or as my husband, Jake, says": #jessed) to live the majority of my life in sunny and mild winters - even in Nashville, Dallas and Denver (where I like to say winter had a purpose🎿). All until I moved to NYC in 2020 - I find the gray, cold and dark Northeast winters, especially January to mid March, sometimes paralyzing - the ultimate kryptonite to building beginning of year momentum.

It’s taken three-and-a-half winter seasons here in Manhattan to force the realization that I need to change my winter appraoch. These are the small and big shifts I’m implementing to counteract that stuck & sad:

• (when I can) escape & go somewhere warm often (I fly to Tulum on Thursday and Florida next month). If I can’t physically escape, take time to plan a warm beach vacation (even if I never go on it) - research has found that planning a vacation can make you happier than the vacation itself!

• Give myself permission for January to be my ‘momentum building’ month - real goals and my business calendar start on Feb 1st! For me, February is a much happier month (my birthday and wedding anniversary) so why not have that be when I start my business year? Remember, there are no rules. We’re just living in a simulation (kidding….kind of).

• Embrace what makes winter magical - for me that’s skiing and the joy that comes from feeling warm when it’s freezing outside. I just booked a local ski trip and spent Friday working from a bath house rather than in my home office.

Each of the shifts I’ve described so far came about because of

(1) a realization I’ve had about myself (i.e. I thrive in sun & warmth, I feel sluggish in January, there are things I really like about winter, I hate feeling cooped up inside for too long)

combined with

(2) a discussion I’ve had with someone else in my life.

Looping back to career development, I’ve had a lot of discussions with people in the last few weeks, of all different backgrounds & circumstances, realizing that they feel stuck. In last week’s Career Catalyst Challenge, the common thread amongst Challengers was feeling that way and desiring to make a shift but knowing where to focus energy.

A lot of “What would I even do if I wasn’t in this role/career path?”

If that question hits a chord, let’s dig into how you can take some first steps towards action (or help someone in your life that needs it) …

Clarify 💡

A natural step that most people take when they feel stuck in their career is to “see what’s out there” - cue doomscrolling on LinkedIn and fear-based narratives of ‘oh I’m not qualified!’ or ‘could I even do that?’

Soooo let’s not do that. Whenever I work with people - we start with defining up to 3 paths that we will focus our energy on in the search. Think of paths more like functions than job titles but it’s whatever level of focus makes sense for what you know you’d like to do - for example, in my 2020 search when I interviewed 101 times, my three initial paths that defined my search were:

1. Product - could have been Product Mananager, Product Operations, Product Strategy, Product Marketing

2. Strategy & Operations - this is the natural consulting to strategy & ops path at large tech companies

3. Chief of Staff - job title specific but focused in on supporting an executive that could open doors for me to start my own company

I didn’t wake up one day and realize these three paths were my options - it took recognizing the type of work I like doing and what I believed my career direction to be - starting my own company.

These paths were refined as I navigated my search.

All because I had regular conversations with, at that time, my coach.

But to begin to form some clarity that answers ‘what would I even do if I weren’t doing this?’ question - here are some journal prompts to start with on your own:

• What are you most proud of in your career so far?

• What are some specific times when work didn't really feel like work?

• What motivates you at work?

• What do you enjoy the most in your current role? Give examples & why you enjoy the work.

• What do you dislike in your current role? Give examples & why you dislike the work.

• If you could wave a magic wand and create the ideal work day, what would it look like? Go hour by hour - describe how you're spending time, who you're working with, what you're working on, etc.

Stream of conscious responses with pen & paper to some or all of the above will start to give you direction on what you really want - instead of leading from society driven expecatations.

Connect 🤝

Some people I speak with already have clarity on what they want next - their next fear driven question that cycles their thoughts is as follows:

‘How do I show that I’m qualified for insert path when I’ve never formally done it?’

We spent a lot of time on exactly this in last week’s challenge - recognizing your value from your past experience and mapping existing skills to roles you want.

This past role to future path mapping creates, what I call, transferable themes: descriptors of a type of skillset important to what you want to do that is common to work you’ve already done.

For example, when I transitioned from a Director of Operations role to Product Manager role, I connected my dots and defined my transferable themes as:

• Prioritization: Prioritization is a top required skillset for a Product Manager - you’re constantly presented with many different problems to solve and potential features you could build. As Director of Operations, I had honed my prioritization skillset while managing the company’s strategic plan and budget.

• Communication: In Product, you need to be able to be able to articulate to many different audiences the ‘why’ of what you’re building. In Operations, I was often the face of business operations & strategy to many different audiences - the entire company at All Hands, the Board of Directors, our executive team, etc.

• Customer-Focus: In Product, everything you build should be grounded in solving real customer painpoints. In Operations, my customer was different (employees - internal stakeholders) but that start point was the same.

Confidently Communicate 🗣️

Defining your own transferable themes allows you to form the building blocks of how you tell your story - it impacts your personal brand deliverables (resume, LinkedIn profile) and how you speak about yourself.

Doing this work is how you set yourself apart and move from feeling stuck to confident in your next step in your career.

I know, I know - easier written then done.

As the shifts I’ve made to combat the stuck & sad hurdles of winter required both self-realization AND conversation with someone else to take action - the same can be said to moving you from stuck to surefooted in your career.

👀 So be on the lookout for a new program I’m launching tomorrow (Monday,1/29) to make your search a lot less lonely and a lot more effective 👀

This week..

Until next week!

Jess Storiale