I’ve been binging Ramit Sethi’s How to Get Rich on Netflix and it’s been fab.

At the beginning of every year I do the University of Brand Amanda. Since 2018 I have included financial education as part of my curriculum – sorely missing before that unfortunately. This year alone I have read nine personal finance books – mostly written by women for women – and I’ve been loving them. Not only do they help me help my clients but tailored advice for women is hard to find. I’ve even hosted a couple of webinars and run workshops on Money Mindset and Advanced Negotiation Tactics for clients and The She-Suite® Club members as a result.

Then I found Ramit Sethi and I’ve got to say I love his approach. 

Not just to money – although it’s great. While his financial advice is definitely better suited to a 30 yo than 50 yo as it relies on time in the market – I sure wish I’d read something like this in my 20s.

However, it’s his philosophy of living a rich life, and consciously choosing how you spend in order to live your rich life that is singing to me.

Imagine what could happen if you actually tried!

It’s got me thinking. Most of us aren’t living our rich lives when it comes to career. We’re making do, doing something because we have to, because it’s expected or we’re settling for something second best because we feel stuck.  Then there is the important issue of most women not having a career strategy.  After-all, planning vertical moves is a very “masculine” thing to do. In fact only about 12% of female CEOs and MDs surveyed by Korn Ferry said they had a plan to get the top job. The rest put it down to luck, being tapped on the shoulder or a happy accident.  

CONSCIOUS CAREER PLANNING

If you’ve been relying on luck up or happy accident until now and you’ve been relatively successful, imagine what could happen if you actually tried? With that in mind, what might go into your conscious career plan? Here are five ways to get started –

1. Create an conscious plan – Be intentional about what it is you want to do over the next 1 year, 3 years, 5 years and 10 years – make a plan including the following headings – what, why (this is super important and will help you when the going gets tough), how, who is going to help, what gaps you currently have and how to fill them and what you want to be earning. This is my standard advice and addresses what I call the missing 33% for women that I talk about in my book Invisible to Invincible a self-promotion handbook for executive women. (The 2nd edition is so close to being released. Watch this space!!)
   
   Then …..
   
   
2. Consider your values – align your plan with the things that are important to you. This makes it easier to get out of your own way. For example if you work in technology but have discovered that you’re passionate about people outcomes too, niche down into the people parts of tech so that you stand out from the crowd. I call this owning your own awesome and it definitely delivers results.
   
   
3. Know the difference between needs and wants – you might need to earn a certain amount of money, but you might really want to work on that exciting secondment project to broaden your experience. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive – it’s not a zero sum game. If you do this right, you might be able to have your cake and eat it too. Wouldn’t that be fabulous?
   
   
4. Focus on things that bring you joy – it sure helps to love your job if you are able to do things that bring you joy and/or you are naturally good at. There is nothing worse than looking at your boring ol’ PD and realising that you’ve outgrown it, that it’s as dry as a dust and that you’ll die of boredom in the next six months. Kill me now! If that’s the case, take the opportunity to rewrite your PD while you have the chance and create something that really sings to you.
   
   
5. Be proactive about career moves – rather than saying yes to everyone who taps you on the shoulder, or waiting for opportunities to find you, set out to create your next career move well in advance. Write your ideal next PD, float it with your boss and other champions, then create a plan to go out and win a role just like it. Rather than waiting til you are bored brainless, or are feeling past your best by date – get out and create new opportunities before you need them. And because 80% of senior level roles aren’t advertised, rather than waiting to apply for roles you find on Seek or LinkedIn, nurture your network in advance so that you are front of mind for when great opportunities do arise – hopefully before you really need them.

THE GOLD STANDARD OF EXECUTIVE BRANDED

There are lots of things that can go into conscious career planning. I’ve only listed five but that’s enough to get started.  The ‘gold standard’ of executive branded is proactive, intentional, future focused and strategic and it fits really well with a conscious career planning approach.  The narrow socialised stereotyped norm for women is far more passive – waiting to be noticed – after-all, deep down we often still believe that our results should speak for themselves. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Rather than simply adopting more masculine career moves – assertive, aggressive and vertically ambitious, try a conscious career approach instead and let me know how you go.

Women do it differently and that’s the point!