One question I’m often asked by the lawyers, accountants and consultants that I work with is how do you make time for your own career progression? After all, if you don’t make time for your career, life happens and you watch your peers (or even the people who qualified after you) overtake you and get promoted ahead of you. 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.
But how do we make time for it when we already don’t have enough time to do the client work on our desk? Let me share with you a tip on how to find and make time for your career. Watch this video below (or click here to watch in YouTube)
One question we’re often asked is how do you make time for your own career? We all know we want to move our career forward, but how do we make time for it? Promise, the day job is always there, and it just sucks up your time. And I know if you were like me when you were working, you have really good intentions. When it gets quiet, I’m going to work on my career. When did that last happen? Either it got quiet because you just had a massive deal on, a transaction, a busy season, and then you went (blows air).
And actually, you were just too busy recharging, so it didn’t quite happen. Or, that busy season, that quiet bit, never quite happens. So, what is it that you need to do to always create time on your career? Well the first thing is you need to do a mindset shift. Remember, clients can come and go. Stuff can happen, but your career is still your career. And you’ve got to treat your clients a mindset shift.
Start working on your own career progression sign up to receive my How to Make Partner weekly tips here and you’ll find out what you need to be working on in your career development, building your client portfolio and your business case to progress your career all the way to partner in your firm.
You’ve got to treat your career as if it’s a client. So, if it was a client what would you do? I suspect you’d put time in the diary for it, probably. Two, I’d suspect you have maybe an account plan, probably. So, you want a career plan. Three, you probably have it in your to-do list to check our model review, how it’s going. You might call that an account plan or an account planning meeting.
So, call a career meeting! That’s what you need to do with your career. You’ve got to treat it as if it’s a client. So, it needs a plan. It needs time put against to it. It needs review. And that all has to be done even when you’re busy. So, what is the answer? Well the first thing is don’t try and do too much.
That’s just going to exhaust you.
It’s really important that the first thing you do is you understand the direction you want your career to go. I’m not talking about having this well-defined goal of by the time I’m 45 I’ll make partner. I’m talking about a direction, so I’d like to move my career forward to make partner. You then want to go, actually if I’m going to get there, where are my gaps?
And actually, that’s the first thing we do on the ‘How to Make Partner’ program, we help you understand where your gaps are. And then we’re not talking about putting a big plan, but we’re noting down the stuff you need to do. In the first module of ‘How to Make Partner*’ we’ll help you do that. (* the How to Make Partner Program has stopped now but take a look at joining my Progress to Partner Academy for career advice, training courses and more)
Start working on your own career progression sign up to receive my How to Make Partner weekly tips here and you’ll find out what you need to be working on in your career development, building your client portfolio and your business case to progress your career all the way to partner in your firm.
Then I will explain in the live mastery call about the importance of a one big focus, in order to start to implement your career plan. Because you can get so overwhelmed with everything you need to do. That’s where the one big focus is. It just says for the next 90 days, this is what I’m going to focus on to move my career forward. You know, it’s not about having lots of plans here, here and here, because that can get overwhelming. It’s what’s the one thing I’m going to do every day? What’s the one thing I’m going to do every week? What are my monthly goals in order to achieve my one big focus? It’s just about keeping it simple and treating your career as if it’s a client of yours.
Wherever you are in your career, if you want to take control of your future and be ready to take the next step up, then find out how we can help you progress your career here
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