Three Ways to Overcome Career Anxiety - Daniel Gulati - Harvard Business Review

Three Ways to Overcome Career Anxiety - Daniel Gulati - Harvard Business Review

"x x x,

But there is good news. Individuals can overcome these new threats. If you're a young, ambitious individual feeling hesitant and hollow, here are three ways to combat those pesky doubts:

De-emphasize prestige and compensation. Money is important, but not at the cost of doing something you love. Taking a job just for the plush office and expense account might be a short-term strategy that compounds feelings of unhappiness further down the track. Without a doubt, the individuals I met who emphasized meaning over money tended to be happier overall than those who didn't.

Start experimenting. Commitment is important, but so is flexibility and intelligent experimentation. Try new things; try hard things. Ask your manager for a chance to lead a new business. Speak at an industry conference. Go on a secondment to another country. This way, you'll keep challenging yourself and avoid that feeling of being locked in.
Spend time defining your passions. It is a difficult psychological achievement to find what we want. The pursuit itself is hard, and it takes time. Like Clayton Christensen did, spend an hour a day thinking about what things you're passionate about. You're allowed to be passionate about different things, so consider more than one option. Adopting a portfolio of passions, rather than racking your brain for that one answer, will help you move away from impossible optimization and enable you to move forward.

These are just some of the techniques I've seen young leaders adopt to move forward with confidence. With some focus and effort, there is every reason that our next generation of leaders should be happy and ready to act with purpose.
x x x."