In my talk “10 lessons to successfully make partner”, the first lesson I talk about is committing to your career. But what if you are stuck in a career rut? In this blog post I explore my own experiences of being in a career rut and how I managed to claw my way out and get the career I always wanted.
I’m Heather Townsend, author of Poised for Partnership and co-author of How to Make Partner & Still Have a Life. I’m the leading global expert in what it takes to move from senior fee earner to partner – and when you get there, stay there. Here are 5 ways to work with me.
My own career rut
For a long time I wanted to pursue a career as a professional speaker. After all, being an award-winning and best-selling author is most of the credentials I need to make it as a professional speaker. But, I’d got stuck.
Think of it as a career rut. As a speaker I was occasionally getting paid to speak, but nothing that was sustainable.
I could see other speakers making it, and wondered why they were getting there and I wasn’t.
Why was I stuck in this career rut, when so many of my peers were zooming ahead of me?
It’s something that you may be experiencing right now? You know you are a good lawyer/accountant/advisor/consultant . You know you deserve to be progressing your career right now – after all, you’ve put the time in to get where you are. So, how do you get out of your career rut and start making the career progression on your firm that others are doing?
The solution to busting out of your career rut
When I looked at the other speakers who were making it around me, I noticed that they were committing to their speaking, and taking every opportunity to get out there and speak to the right people.
It’s fair to say, that’s wasn’t what I was doing!
The lawyers/accountants/advisors/consultants who we see taking this step and truly committing to their career are the ones which we also see rapidly progressing their career to partner. Yes, it really is quite that simple. Commit to your career and guess what, you’ll break out of your career rut.
Take a step forwards to working on your own career development and sign up to my weekly newsletter here and you’ll find out what you need to be working on in your career development (and how to make the time for your career development) to progress your career in your firm.
How to commit to your career
It’s all very well to say, “commit to your career”. But a lot harder to actually do this.
What you need is a highly visual road map of how you was going to get to my goal with weekly and monthly actions to get your there. The first step to truly committing is to create a compelling plan.Click here to download your FREE Career Action Plan
If you are struggling to create your compelling career plan
Then:
- Consider working with a coach to understand what blocks or resistance you are experiences
- Think laterally about your career – are there other ways to get what you want and need, but via a different route
- Take a break and give yourself time to recharge your batteries. Being burnt out is never a good time to put together your career plan
- Check out how my Progress to Partner Academy can help you create a career development plan that you can work on every day, week and month to make the progress that you deserve.
I’m Heather Townsend, author of Poised for Partnership and co-author of How to Make Partner & Still Have a Life. I’m the leading global expert in what it takes to move from senior fee earner to partner – and when you get there, stay there. Here are 5 ways to work with me.
Take a step forwards to working on your own career development and sign up to my weekly newsletter here and you’ll find out what you need to be working on in your career development (and how to make the time for your career development) to progress your career in your firm.
