Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (see the triangle below), our needs fall into tiers:
🔮Basic
🔮Psychological
🔮Self-fulfillment
I learned this idea in a career workshop with Jared Scheinberg, LCSW CASAC
It’s unrealistic to expect a job to fulfill all of our needs. Once we identify each of our needs, we can seek out opportunities that fill out our triangle.
Then, we fulfill the remaining needs elsewhere. For example, maybe we find a job that pays our bills and provides a network of friends but leaves us without the satisfaction of giving back to our community. Once we recognize the missing need, we can either:
💀Resent our current role for not providing or
🌱Search out volunteer opportunities in our neighborhood
When we recognize jobs, people, and experiences for the needs they CAN fulfill, we appreciate them more and it empowers us to take charge of fulfilling the rest. Then, we end up with a rich and diverse circle of people and experiences. For me, the anxiety is a clue that I need to investigate ways to fill out my triangle.
Here's the best advice I've ever received when struggling with motivation:
If you want to run 5 miles, set a goal of 1.
If you want to workout for an hour, commit to 10 minutes.
Or, according to Twyla Tharp, if you want to commit to the gym every morning, the habit is not the workout, it's hailing the cab for the commute.
Once you cross that 2 mile mark, cheer yourself on. If you feel good, keep going. If not, come back tomorrow and try again. Every day.
Getting started is the hurdle. Once you're in flow, you won't want to stop.
Cheer yourself on for the incremental goals and you'll quickly start to cross the finish line of your lofty ones.
Beginnerhood: Joy, Taye Diggs, and brain workouts
There's a scene in Private Practice (I know, stay with me) where we discover that Taye Diggs's character never learned how to ride a bike.
Audra McDonald and Taye Diggs play a divorced couple, both successful doctors, and we get to watch her guide him from training wheels to his first ride in a parking lot. His helmet flops to the side and he rolls forward. His eyes widen with the playground joy-panic of an 8 year old.
I recently listened to a podcast where neuroscientist David Eagleman talked about his new book Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever Changing Brain.
He emphasized the importance of feeding the adaptive power of the brain, or neuroplasticity, by subjecting it to new experiences.
If you want to keep your brain healthy, the best workout is to learn something new. Regularly set out to learn new skills. Make beginnerhood a practice and category of your playtime. Cultivate the vulnerability tolerance, joy-panic, and thrill of a new playground skill for brain longevity.
I bet it will make you a better colleague, boss, and student.
Career Vs. Vocation: The David Model
David was carved out of a single block of marble, discarded twice by sculptors and left untouched for 10 years before Michelangelo laid his hands on the cold stone to begin.
🔮 Careers carve you out after 65 years. You are David.
🔮You carve out your vocation until you die. You are Michelangelo.
I believe you need both to thrive, but not to survive. Balance is ideal to avoid burnout.
A career can shape you through lessons, education, skill, and experience, but 40 hour workweeks take a toll on your body and mind.
Vocations are available to you for your whole life. Your dedication is up to you. You have the freedom to come and go, but if you cultivate the discipline to show up regularly, it will start to replenish you.
The obstacles you overcome are part of the story of your accomplishments. Rejection, obstacles, loss, inadequacy, and insufficiency are part of the beginning.
A win means you started at the beginning and carved your way towards a masterpiece. Aim for a personal canon. Go get 'em.
Vice President Kamala Harris and the Year 2226
208 years.
Today I watched Kamala Harris make history as the first woman, and first Black and Asian-American woman to be sworn into as VP of the US.
This is one of those days to re-energize for the long road ahead.
The World Economic Forum released a 2018 report predicting that if the US progresses at its historical pace, it will take 208 years to close the economic gender gap.
This report doesn't address that for every dollar men make:
🔮White women make 78
🔮Black women make 64
🔮Latina women make 56 cents
If we want to accelerate our efforts to close the gap we can:
🔮Invest in education for girls & women
🔮Hire women not just for the sake of inclusivity, but because more diverse workplaces are better equipped to solve problems.
🔮Hold each other accountable. Do you ask potential employers to see the org's data on diversity? Does your company release their public data on diversity and inclusion annually? Do they have plans in place?
🔮Invest in DEI practices at work. The first step in addressing our implicit biases is to become aware of them. Then we can take action and hire expert BIPOC women to lead the way.