On Self-Doubt and Being Boring

This week has been a bit of a struggle. We've all been sick with the stomach flu, and at one point both my kids vomited at the same time.

What, you're still reading? Okay, then, I'll try to get to my point. We all have weeks that make us doubt our choices, and this was one of them for me. Unfortunately, becoming a career coach has not made me immune to career doubt. I spend most of my days with my young kids at home, fitting in part-time work where I can, you know, trying for that elusive career unicorn: work-life balance (which I do think is a myth, but a pretty myth with a rainbow mane and sparkly horn that I can't stop searching for).

On weeks like this, I fantasize about putting on a suit and going to a busy office full of adults and discussing matters of the utmost importance, then dining in vomit-free restaurants, where I sit down the entire time and don't have to break up a shoving match over the sippy-cup with the fishies on it. Did I mention I'm sitting down?

I thought I'd go back to work full-time after my first child was born, but I had a difficult childbirth, an emergency C-section. I felt like motherhood had broken me, and I needed time to rebuild myself into this new creature: A mom. I decided to stay home with my baby, and it's a decision I don't regret. Still, some weeks, like this week, I start to wonder if I should be going back to work full time. Like many moms at home, some weeks are so hard. And I wonder why more at-home parents aren't raving lunatics. Seriously. It seems like everyone's making it look so easy.

It's the loneliness that makes me doubt myself. There are people who stopped asking me about my day-to-day life after I decided to stay home, and it hurt. We're not close anymore. It's funny, I think there are some fascinating aspects to caring for young children. At-home parents have a front-row seat to developmental milestones, and not just first steps. The other day my son learned to jump. The joy on his face as he left the ground was unmistakable, and I loved helping him work out the details of how to do it again. We take so much for granted with our bodies, and seeing someone learn to launch himself, literally, is exhilarating.

But then there's the drudgery, the housework and lack of adult conversation. Two years ago, Meagan Francis of The Happiest Mom wrote about boredom, and I was reading her thoughts and feeling inspired. Two years ago she chose fighting boredom as her new years resolution.  Her tips include choosing challenging media, taking action, and finding daily inspiration.

So, what to be inspired about in this week of dreary weather and stomach flu? There's a column I like to read in Harvard Business Review on careers. Recently Gianpiero Petriglieri urged readers who are questioning their career direction to stay with their career questions: 

"For all the value we put on plans and pursuits, what makes us who we are is often what we do with life's surprises. Temptations don't always point to what we really want, but often hint towards who we are trying to become. Maturity isn't the ability to pursue or suppress them. It is the ability to take them seriously without always taking them literally."

So, taking my business lunch fantasy seriously, but not literally....I think it's less about the clothes and the nice lunch, and more about a need for camaraderie. Because really, I like being boring, and I would love to hang out with other boring moms.

But in this age of Facebooking and Tweeting, boring is a luxury, one that's tough to indulge in. I've been afraid of boredom all my life. There's a part of me that fears that if I'm bored, then I'm boring to others, and if I'm boring to others, then I'm not worth much. If I can't deliver a good response to "What do you do?" when meeting someone for the first time, what then? If I can't be witty all the time, then who am I?

My hesitation with being an at-home parent, then, amounts to a reluctance to make peace with the part of me that has always been a homebody, who will always love a good book and a cup of coffee maybe with one good friend, more than a loud girls night out. I'm not one of those stay-at-home parents who says: "I don't know why they call us 'stay-at-home.' I'm never at home." People, I'm always home, and I like it. I love it. I have the frayed bunny slippers to prove it. A sunny spring day in the backyard with the kids, followed by an old Bruce Willis movie and a beer with the hubs? That's the stuff.

There, I've admitted it. And I'll be sure to go out and meet some new moms at the moms group mixer  soon. Tomorrow. But for now, some at-home time. Now, where did my toddler put that remote?

What Haunts You?

I'm going to try to get back in the saddle with the blogging. Sure, I've slacked off a bit, but 2012 was a crazy year, wasn't it? It's a new year, and so on and so forth. Onward...

I've written before about my love of the obituaries for career inspiration, and a recent obit in the Post reminded me of why I love to read these.

A famous Manga comic artist passed away last week. I don't know much about Manga, but the opener to this obit grabbed me right away. Keiji Nakazawa survived an atomic bomb. He was six, standing outside of his Hiroshima school, when the U.S. dropped the bomb on his city. Somehow the school building shielded him.

He pursued a career in comic book art, sticking to themes such as boy adventures, samurai, and baseball. But in 1966 his mother died, and when he collected the ashes, he said he noticed that there was barely anything left of her, that usually there were pieces of bone, but the radiation had affected her  down to her bones. He decided to focus his art on the bombings and their effects. His work was so moving that a group formed a nonprofit to translate his work into different languages.

What strikes me about this man is that he would never have become the artist he became without going to dark places, exploring a horrific event that he survived as a child, facing down who knows what demons.

It's not a place people like to go. Who would? But there are things that haunt you. We have all seen enough now in this world to ask ourselves what sticks to us, what can't we let go of? What do we have to do something about? A lot of times I see people who are frustrated because they are stuck trying to figure out their career direction. If only they had a passion, something they loved to do. They feel guilty that they don't.

It's fine to ask yourself what you love, what your passion is. But if you come up empty, it might be worth asking what haunts you? What do you detest more than anything? Maybe your passion isn't a sunny, happy place. And that's okay too. In fact, it's more than okay, it's admirable.

The Danger of Overplanning Your Career

Let's say you've done some soul searching and finally have decided on your next career move. You want to open a floral shop in Georgetown and cater to nearby businesses who need flowers at their front desks. You're proud of the specific nature of your dream, after years of vague yearnings. Everyone you tell your dream to is impressed by your razor sharp goals.
But wait, not so fast. Vague dreams have their up side, it seems. Leaving some of your dream open to chance may make you a bit luckier.
Researchers are discovering that identifying a destination, then being open to multiple paths to arriving there, is better than creating and trying to stick to a detailed, linear plan, Psychology Today magazine reports.
So instead, what if you expand your vision? Maybe your dream could be to add beauty to workspaces through living plants. Maybe you decide to experiment with your dream by taking a part-time flower delivery gig, and you learn that there's a demand for potted plants in lobbies of tall office buildings outside of your target area. Can you be flexible enough to jump on that opportunity?
You can prime yourself for good luck if you approach life with a sense of possibility. And when you see an opportunity, it takes flexibility and openness to try something new.
One way to cultivate flexibility? Take a different route to work, or try a new coffee shop. Insert novelty in your day. It can't hurt, and you just might be a bit more lucky in life.

Clutter Up Your Career

The new year brings resolutions, and this year it seems everywhere I turn, some magazine is urging me to declutter my home, my email, my brain, even my  resume.
I'm trying to resist the urge to spend large amounts of time decluttering. It always looks so good on television, but I think clutter gets a bad reputation.
Instead of trying to keep to a linear career path in life, clutter up your career. Don't worry so much about being on "track," about having the perfect resume, the perfect work history, or the most linear progression through a company. Think instead about cultivating hobbies, pursuing reading just because it intrigues you, and collecting odd facts and theories. Consider taking a course for the love of it, or becoming an expert on something off-beat. Sometimes you can hook a future employer that way.
I once got a job because I had traveled to Morocco. I had no other reason for going except the photos in our college travel center looked amazing. And it helped that study abroad at my college cost the same as staying on campus. So off I went, and later, I was hired by a man who also loved traveling to Morocco, and when he saw on my resume I had studied there, he offered me an interview. I got the job, and I credit that trip.
So go ahead, take up something intriguing, or read a perfectly "useless" article. Stray from the linear path and see what happens. Clutter is not so terrible after all. It can be interesting.

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In other news, I will be starting to take new clients again now that the new year has begun. If you would like to talk more about my services, please contact me at meredithtseu@gmail.com. Happy New Year!

Is Buying a Home Good for Your Career?

Many new graduates I talk with are saddled with huge student loans and wonder about when they can afford a home, or even a car, of their own. So many are renting, sharing space with roommates, and riding Metro (here in DC). It's understandable that they would want to settle down some day in their own homes, with no landlord to worry about.

The more I read about our economic recovery, however, the more I wonder if the American dream of owning a home is bad for our careers. Time magazine reports that the outlook for economic recovery and job growth may turn out to be very dependent on where you live. According to a report commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, New York City may see a good job market in two years, but L.A. may not see a good one for seven. Of course, results like these are in the mayors' best interest, and I try to take these things with a grain of salt.

Still, I'm starting to think I may need to start asking career counseling clients if they intend to own their homes in the next decade or if they will rent. It may make all the difference to their career decisions. If your dream job is available across the country but not locally, can you afford to move? And if you can't afford to buy, maybe that's good news, in a way. You're free to move to that job in NYC.

On Being Vulnerable

Photo by Nate Brelsford, via stock.xchng

Recently on brainpickings.org I came across researcher/storyteller Brene Brown, author of The Gifts of Imperfection. In her talk (I watched it here), she asserts that perfectionism blocks our paths to happiness. I fall victim to this all the time. I'm sure that's why I haven't posted on my blog recently. With a newborn, I'm never rested enough, never reading enough, never prepared enough to post. But I need to get over that, and so do job seekers.
Time and again I see a client's perfectionism get in the way of sending out a resume on time. So often I see people waiting for the perfect moment to change careers. The economy is never good enough, their portfolio is never creative enough.
But the perfect time will never come. We will never be the perfect candidate, because being human is by definition an imperfect enterprise. At some point we have to take a deep breath and send the email. We have to be ourselves. We have to, as author Seth Godin writes, get used to "shipping" the product.
We need to find a way to act like ourselves, despite the fear that we're not good enough. Brown says this is, very simply, what happy people do. They put their real selves out there and make connections. They make themselves vulnerable, despite the fear. If that's difficult for you right now in your job search, her talk might inspire you to hit send. What's the worst that could happen?


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My career counseling practice is still temporarily on hold, although I am taking time for a few resume critiques by email and phone. Contact me at meredithtseu@gmail.com for more information. I'll be sure to tell you when I'm fully up and running again.

Maternity Leave and Robots

Photo by Sasan Saidi

Okay, so those things are not related. Two separate ideas here in this little post.

First things first: I'm on maternity leave. My second child was born a couple weeks ago, and although I thought I'd keep posting through the rest of April, it didn't work out that way. Which is probably for the best, given how much sleep I'm getting. I expect I'll be taking at least three months break from my career counseling practice, but I'll keep you posted if it's less than that.

In the meantime... robots! Slate.com is soliciting opinions about a topic I find interesting: Will robots steal our jobs? Automation is a force that we all will have to deal with sometime, I believe. And when considering a future career, it's a topic we all must consider. Even my job seems just as risky these days. Just how replaceable are humans to a certain job? Slate will be writing about it in the near future, and if you want to weigh in on the topic, visit here.