TECC 255: Developing a Growth Mindset for Career Success

In this episode, we talk to Lesa Edwards, MPA, CJSS, MRW, ACRW, CELDC, a Master Resume Writer, Certified Job Search Strategist, Certified Executive and Leadership Development Coach, award-winning podcaster of The Exclusive Career Coach, Master Practitioner of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and international speaker on job search topics. We talk about how you can develop a growth mindset to act as a primary tool for career advancement. Engineering Quotes: Here Are Some of the Key Points Discussed About Developing a Growth Mindset: Develop a growth mindset to be aware and in control of your entire range of emotions and purposefully think of what you want to think of. When you continue to think a thought, it becomes a belief. A belief is stored in your subconscious and is impacting who you are. The first step to develop a growth mindset is by building awareness of your thoughts. If you start looking for a job with the mindset that there are no jobs available, you will not give your entire effort to finding a job, and you will go through the job search steps with the wrong energy. Brooke Castillo, from The Life School Coach, has a model based on the acronym CTFAR. This model will help you to find the best way to get what you want. C – Circumstance: The circumstance you are currently experiencing. T – Thought: Your thoughts about your circumstance. F – Feeling: How you feel about your thoughts. A – Action: What action you will take. R – Result: Based on the last four steps, is the result what you want? One of the best ways to learn to separate your circumstance from what you are feeling and thinking about your circumstance is to get a coach. Having a coach's perspective helps you learn how to get the proper perspective to separate your circumstance from your feelings and thoughts. Our brain is our real estate, and we get to think about what we want. Change the way you think of things that you do not like. Instead of thinking that you do not like your job, change your thoughts to say that you do have a job. This way of thinking is for your benefit. It will make your experience with any difficult area in your life better. We often have "mental manuals" for people that outline how we think they should behave. If the person behaves differently to your manual, then you get to decide what it means. If you place your biases on people, you will run into problems. Remember that you cannot control other people. Let other people be other people because they will do what they are going to do, and you cannot control them. When it comes to job searching, the definition of insanity is appropriate. The definition of insanity is continually doing the same thing but expecting to get different results. If you have been searching for jobs but always get the same outcome, applying for more jobs, in the same way, will not get you different results. You must be willing to be brave and try different things. If you decide to do something different that is difficult for you, reward yourself once you have done it. Many engineers find networking to be difficult. If you go out and network anyway, reward yourself. Here Are Three Job Search Tips and Strategies: Understand the difference between passive and active job search strategies. A passive strategy is a strategy where you are not in control of the outcome. Things like job boards and talking to recruiters are passive strategies. An active strategy is centered around networking and having conversations with the people in your network. The conversations should be centered around your "fit" with their company, even if there are no jobs posted. Remember, good companies always find the right people and place them in the right place in the company. Your job search strategy just out of college should com...