Why: Passionate about people, growth and maximising self fulfillment journey. We all get a dose of what disengagement or feeling stuck looks and feels like, not a journey I would like to walk alone. Sharing my reflections truly energize, galvanize, and provide a humbling medium to spar and hopefully inspire someone out there to forge a meaningful path forward.
Still a journey being told, some of the practices mostly from my experience and unfolding journey. I acknowledge there might be other ways to skin a cat. Pretty confident there would be resonance but also blindspots. Encourage us to consume the tips with this context in mind.
Purpose/Use-case: How to take charge of your personal growth, align your ambitions with your strengths, and open doors to meaningful opportunities and greater impact.
Key notes/take-aways:
- “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come” – Victor Hugo.
- The idea begins today for anyone who hasn’t started, feeling stuck or lost, and we can always begin the journey towards accelerated growth. Never too late, with conviction and commitment to preserve and acknowledging we will never have it fully figured out.
- Key is commitment to growth, acknowledging the road ahead and the demands, but more importantly that we continuously remind ourselves that we are always capable of doing great things.
The how – Building Blocks:
1. Deep work : Understand and develop “Your Why”, connect the dots to your value/milestones, who am I becoming and who do I want to become, quantify your journey – that’s the pitch for your development and growth or even the next interview.
- We can’t always turn it on and off – needs to be part of your vocabulary/actions – also makes us recognize and acknowledge what you are becoming.
- Feeling stuck? What did I do well as a kid, what do people come to me for – could be pointers. What am I doing when I feel most fulfilled? Those are the clues…
- While the journey of purpose and self-discovery is an evolving one, it is very important to do the deep work. Understand who you are, the uniqueness you can add to your team, your scope and the mission of the environment or organisation we are part of. It might take some time to properly articulate and understand this, run with what you know now and continuously reflect on them and iterate further.
- It might not always be glaring but we have to put in the work, as we navigate growth – quickly becomes apparent that the qualities that got us here will not be enough for the journey ahead. It takes an embodiment of understanding your larger purpose and finding the intersection point towards driving the purpose of the spaces we find ourselves.
- Establish a clear understanding of how your function/role fits in the bigger picture and sometimes even thinking 2-3 steps ahead and asking your leader or connecting the dots when global leaders share their perspectives.
2. 360 degrees Ecosystem: Understand the ecosystem, what is keeping your manager up at night, what is the business thinking, how does my scope contribute, how will my scope potentially evolve, which problems can emerge, and how do they connect to my passion/track record and where I want to go, how do my stakeholders think, how do I navigate our collaboration better to accelerate my impact and game plan.
3. Point of departure and game plan: Chase skills and platforms that connect with your why. Widens horizon, makes you well rounded and expands the opportunity/growth reach.
4. Career accelerators, buy-in, value enablers: Talking the big game is all well and good. Where the rubber hits the road is the intersection of where you can set direction, come up with creative ideas, work collaboratively but ultimately, able to execute to deliver high impact outcomes, with consistency, accountability, and quality.
- Get things done, collaboration with or without authority
- Commitment
- Triggers – Understand and channel them to the plan, emotions are usually smoke screen, masking the real data/root cause.
- Consistency
- Excellence – Ticket to the dance
- Directional aggression – Fear and being shy don’t interfere with articulated value/narratives. Perfection is an illusion but progress is always attainable. Think 1% incremental improvement towards the plan.
- Manage perception and personal brand to connect the dots. How you want to show up, comms delivery, dressing – 360 degrees.
5. Putting it all together:
- Growth Road map – Frequently iterate, curate and seek feedback to level up
- Proactive and action oriented 1-2-1s (Business and career) – What is working, what could be better, what is not working, what did you learn, focus and areas of support.
- Build systems – You need them to fly
- Driver seat and proactivity – initiate contact – promote value add, ask for gaps, paint the narrative
- Protect the body and the mind – Thats is the vehicle to actualize, once health fails, all else withers…
- Continuous reflection – celebrate and curate the small wins, take the personal out of feedback, be your own best critique and admirer, onboard new ideas and show up daily consistently (even if 60/70%, show up).
BJA | TDM 
One response to “BJA Playbooks: Navigating Performance, Career & purpose alignment”
Thanks for the reminder that growth starts with being intentional in self discovery, clarity of purpose and then accelerates through strategic execution, stakeholder alignment, and consistent delivery within our ecosystems. “The idea begins today for anyone who hasn’t started”💪🏽