April 2024
It’s no secret that my career so far has had a bit of a tax flavour to it - given the 25½ years spent in the Big 4 until focusing fully on my own business from March this year. So I have plenty to draw on from this space when it comes to the topic of thriving as a professional. In March and April I delivered the first two of four online career and professional development sessions for the Association of Taxation Technicians and the Chartered Institute of Taxation, under the banner of the Thriving Tax Professional.
In these sessions, I delved into the notion of thriving through the lens of a tax professional, exploring how we can move beyond surviving to truly flourishing in our careers. Drawing upon insights from psychology, economics, and personal development, I proposed eight key elements of thriving in your career, each essential for crafting a fulfilling professional journey.
I expect that most of those who work or have worked in a professional services environment can easily recognise the compulsion to drive towards financial success and status, often with making partner as the holy grail. I use the word compulsion (an irresistible urge to behave in a certain way) because it captures for me a sense of being drawn along by something outside of ourselves, rather than being led by our values, intrinsic motivations and self-knowledge. Yet, ultimately, it’s doing things in line with these latter things that lead to us truly thriving.
In his book, Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us, Daniel Pink tells us that we’re motivated by autonomy, mastery and purpose - we want control over how we work and who we work with, visibility of our impact, to get better at something that matters, and to be in service of a higher objective. This is also what Simon Sinek calls our “Why”.
Drawing on definitions of thriving from the world of psychology, we can also see these elements in action. A definition of thriving that I particularly like is “the psychological state in which individuals experience both a sense of vitality and a sense of learning” (see Brown, Daniel J., et al. "Human thriving." European Psychologist (2017)). Brown et al summarise a host of academic papers on thriving and highlight a number of what they call ‘contextual and positive enablers’ to thriving. Contextual enablers include an environment that challenges us and having the support of family, colleagues and our employer. Positive enablers covers the “attitudes, cognitions, and behaviours” of us as individuals that help us to thrive; things like a positive perspective, proactivity, motivation, knowledge and learning, resilience, and social competence.
Based on these, and combining ideas from Pink and Sinek, I landed on my own 8 dimensions of thriving, or my “thrivometer”. These are:
Resilience - the ability to bounce back from adversity, to adapt and grow stronger in the process.
Healthy challenge - pushing beyond our comfort zones, spurring growth and innovation.
Learning - this is not just about knowing what we need to know in our area of expertise, it’s also about stretching ourselves to new heights in all areas of capability.
Using your strengths - each of us possesses a unique set of strengths and, by identifying and leveraging them, we not only excel in our work but also find greater fulfillment and satisfaction.
Autonomy - this is more than just freedom from micromanagement; it's about empowerment and agency in our work - taking ownership of our work and our decisions.
Our outputs are visible and recognised - we’re seeing a tangible impact from, and are being recognised for, our contributions.
Alignment to our purpose/ our why - what’s more important than what we do and how we do it is why we do it, and our goal should be to work and do business with those who believe what we believe. This comes from our feelings and intuition and not from logic.
Level of support - thriving doesn't happen in isolation; it flourishes in the fertile soil of supportive relationships and networks.
We can control or exert influence over all of these elements. Getting the support you need at work can come through building trusted, reciprocal relationships - surfacing mentors, role models, and recognition of what you offer and what you need. Some of us start out finding it easier than others to meet new people and make new connections but all of us can grow in our ability to do this - and for it to feel authentic. Yes it’s important to be clear on your super-strengths and to use them, but remember that you have an unlimited capacity to grow and learn, too.
“I can, with care and attention and some patience, shape my “bundle”. I can bring to the fore various aspects of my bundle according to the needs of a situation, or better, in line with my intent and aspirations”
(Myles Downey, Enabling Genius: A Mindset for Success in the 21st Century (2016))
Everything we consider ourselves to be is made up from examining, arranging and testing our experience. As we continue to have experiences so our view of who we are and what we are capable of is reinvented. We can choose what we do and how we show up in life, including curating our own “bundle”.
This is at the heart of working through our self-limiting beliefs - views about ourselves that are outdated, were probably never accurate, and which no longer serve us. If I hadn’t shed the belief about myself not being someone who can do presentations I would not have had the opportunities and experiences I have had in my career and I would not have found out that it’s actually something that I really enjoy!
The order of the elements of my thrivometer is not significant but, if it was, I’d put resilience both first and last. It comes first because it’s important to look after both our physical and mental wellbeing so we’re in a great place to deal with what life throws at us, and so we’re showing up as our best selves more often than not. It would also come last because so much of what helps us to be resilient can be derived from focusing on the other elements. With the right support, mindset, motivation, learning and challenge, your resilience can be boosted and maintained.
So, my challenge to you is to reflect on where you are on the 8 dimensions of thriving, to refresh your perspective on what career success looks like to you where you are right now, to re-engage with your strengths and your why, and to reconsider what is possible if you allow yourself to stretch yourself and experiment with your identity bundle.
Ruth, April 2024