Own Your Life, Career, and Future in the Post COVID-19 World

Own Your Life, Career, and Future

Are you ready to Own Your Career, Life, and Future? I have been speaking with many job clubs and other organization leaders about what they are seeing with their constituents. Many have told me that as we hit the 18-month mark of the COVID-19 pandemic fatigue has set in.

There is a perception that people in the 2nd half of life are not taking ownership and possibly giving up at least temporarily.

At the same time, I have been reading a lot of books written about the future. This includes:

• Future Proof: Reinventing Work in the Age of Acceleration by Diana Wu-David
• Roar: Into the Second Half of Your Life (Before It’s Too Late) by Michael Clinton
• Own Your Career Own Your Life: Stop Drifting and Take Control of Your Future by Andy Storch

The common theme of all of these books is that now is the time to take ownership. Own your career, life, and future.

Own Who You Are (Your Life)

Michael Clinton’s book, Roar: Into the Second Half of Your Life (Before It’s Too Late) part II is called “Own Who You Are”.

Michael starts this part of the book with the following:

We all have a past. We all have baggage. We all have moments of woulda, coulda, and shoulda. W are all coming from that past to face our future. You are a composite of those experiences, and there’s not much you can do about them now. You have to own them as what makes you special and unique.

As many of you have crossed the threshold of long-term unemployment, 6 months (many are way past that), now is the time to embrace where you are in your career.

The pandemic has forced many to reaccess what they are doing in their career. Are they willing to let go of what has not worked in the last 18 months in finding employment and embrace what is available?

In my discussions with job club leaders, what I have heard is that some have been going back to work in contract positions. This is not what they want. They want full-time employment with benefits and specifically health insurance.

Others dread going back into the office for fear that they might get sick.

Whatever the barriers might be you need to own it!

Own Your Career

Andy Storch’s book, Own Your Career Own Your Life: Stop Drifting and Take Control of Your Future part I is called “Own Your Career”.

Andy writes the following:

For this book, when I say, “own your career” or “own your life,” that means taking full responsibility and being intentional with your actions. It means having an idea of where you want to go, making a plan, and then taking steps to get there. It means that you don’t wait for others to tell you what to do or where to go. It means you don’t blame others for your problems.

Now is the time to reaccess where you want to go in the future.

Andy talks about the need to set a vision. I know for all of my corporate careers I had no vision. I moved from job to job, made career pivots along the way but there was no overarching vision, only what I wanted to do next.

Connect to Purpose

Like having a vision does your career have a purpose? Does your career or more importantly your life have a “why”?

Why are you doing what you are doing?

I know for myself until I had my near-fatal bicycle accident nearly 20 years ago, I did not have a “why”. I did things that I was good at and got paid for. It was only during my recovery from the bicycle accident did I start questioning why I was doing what I was doing. I then spent the next 10 years figuring out what my purpose was.

For me finding my purpose was really difficult and I largely did this inside my own head. I did not seek help like when I had done previously with big decisions. Finding my purpose? I did not know how to do that. I was used to just wandering around in my career.

Own Your Future

Diana Wu-David’s book, Future Proof: Reinventing Work in the Age of Acceleration chapter 1 is called The Future of Work.

Diana writes the following:

Globalization, disruption, and longevity are coming together to transform the way we work and the way people see the future of work. Mostly, we see the future of work as bewildering. The perpetual mention of accelerating change gives us motion sickness. Our eyes glaze over reading the doomsday headlines in the press…

That was written before the COVID-19 pandemic. I strongly suggest you listen to my conversation with Diana in the podcast episode, Future Proof: Reinventing Work in the Age of Acceleration with Diana Wu David [Podcast].

Pretty much everything Diana wrote before the pandemic is happening but only faster. Now is the time to take control of your future rather than let others control your future. Diana breaks down controlling your future into 3 steps:

• Learn: How and why the world of work is changing
• Cultivate: The virtues to stay engaged and relevant
• Maximize: The impact of your actions

Take time to carefully plan how you are going to plan and take control of your future in the post-COVID-19 world.

Just Own It!

Except for some epidemiologists, no one predicted what has happened over the last 18 months. Now is the time to own the situation you find yourself in and take action!

Just like the Nike slogan, just do it, now I want to tell you just own it!

What is your first step?

Marc Miller  

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