Career Roadmap

All the Things I Wish I’d Known: A Love Letter to Young Professionals

Congratulations, you’re embarking on a career in communications! As a young professional, you will occupy a specific niche as both a storyteller and ethical barometer. In the coming years, you will engage in both strategic planning and execution, seeing your projects and initiatives come to life. It’s an exciting time, and I hope you’ve found an organization that will empower you to grow, contribute and thrive.

When I think about my earliest years in the workforce, there were times I was overworked, overwhelmed and downright scared. A decade later, I can’t help but think, “If only I’d known…”

I want to share some of the essential skills that can help you navigate your career, improve your quality of life and set you apart in the workplace. This is my love letter to young professionals, wherever and whenever you are.

Work Life Balance

Work takes up a significant part of our lives, and starting a new career can be challenging. Honing skills to manage competing priorities, stress and communication challenges can allow you to focus on aspects of your role that bring you joy and meaning. This leads to better outcomes on a human level and as an employee making valuable contributions to your organization.

The concept of work life balance can be surprisingly misleading. It conjures images of super-achievers, people with boundless energy who excel personally and professionally while juggling hobbies, relationships, travel and more.

The truth is that achieving work life balance is an individual journey. We have a finite amount of energy and we must choose how we spend it. Recognizing this can help you own your career, as well as your personal development.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach, and some days we have more energy than others. By prioritizing our goals, we can ensure that the energy we do have is used meaningfully. Any leftover energy can be allocated toward other pursuits that enhance our quality of life.

When it comes to identifying primary goals, think of them as buckets, or areas of life that hold the most significance. These can include: 

  • Career Achievement
  • Learning (Formal or Experiential)
  • Relationships
  • Lifestyle
  • Financial Security
  • Travel and Experiences
  • Community Service
  • Hobbies and Recreation
  • Health, Wellness and Spirituality

Each bucket holds value, but prioritizing one often means giving less attention to another. For instance, if your goal is to advance quickly in your career, you might spend less time on hobbies. If you want to travel extensively in your 20s, if could affect your financial stability.

To determine your primary goals, first define your vision. Where do you see yourself personally and professionally? Understand why this vision is important and what’s required to succeed. Use this understanding to create specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely (SMART) goals that can guide your career journey.

Committing to goals is the first step, but managing them is where the real work begins. Use the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) framework when measuring your progress:

  • Plan: Set your goal and outline the specific actions that will help you achieve it.
  • Do: Implement those actions, focusing on execution.
  • Check: Assess the results. Did your efforts move you closer to the goal?
  • Act: If your plan is working, continue. If not, make adjustments and improve your strategy for better success.

Our goals will naturally evolve as we grow, our circumstances shift or we come across unexpected forks in the road. Make the most of these occurrences by being alert and evaluating opportunities as they arise. Don’t feel like you have to say yes to everything. Ensure the decisions you make will help you reach your goals.

My goals today look a little different than they did a few years ago, and they’re far more balanced. While career advancement and learning remain important, I now distribute my energy more evenly across six buckets:

  • Relationships
  • Health and Wellbeing
  • Community Service
  • Advancement
  • Learning
  • Financial Security

The reason for that shift? I welcomed my daughter a year ago and health and wellness became a big focus. My financial goals also changed, moving from establishing myself to ensuring my baby girl has everything she needs.

Alongside these changes, my career path also shifted. Having transitioned to the nonprofit world from a corporate communications role, I am now far more motivated to make a positive difference in my community.

With more priorities at hand, I strive to work more efficiently. This shift has also meant establishing healthy boundaries. I leave the office at a reasonable time and, while I still work on evenings and weekends, I ensure I’m fully present with my family when I’ve promised that time.  

Managing Stress

Over time, I’ve become more adept at putting stress in its place. What worked for me was taking the time to accept the things that were outside my control and focus my energy on what I can control.

When stress-inducing situations happen at work, it triggers a series of events in the brain. The amygdala, known as the brain’s fear center, is activated. Stress hormones like adrenalin and cortisol are produced, sending the brain into fight or flight mode. These hormones elevate heart rate and breathing; they cause us to sweat and divert blood from our brain to our limbs. When this happens, we can lose our ability to think rationally and focus.

However, there is a gap between that stimulus and the stress response. We can train our brains to choose whether we allow the amygdala to take control. When you know your feelings of upset and panic are produced by tiny chemicals and not the unpleasant event itself, you suddenly have a lot more power over those emotions.

Here are other tactics I’ve found helpful in managing my own stress in the workplace.  

  • Organize and Prioritize: When I’m overwhelmed by my to-do list, I ensure everything I want to do is listed and ask what must be done. Focus on completing the tasks that are most vital to advancing your project or business. If you need help identifying those tasks, ask your supervisor for input. Oftentimes, they’ll appreciate seeing how much is on your plate and help you narrow down your list.
  • Know Thyself: Generally, effective business leaders have a high degree of emotional intelligence (EQ). These individuals can accurately perceive and manage their own emotions, as well as those of others, which can help deescalate a stressful situation. EQ is so important that it often outperforms the intelligence quotient (IQ) as a predictor of success in the workplace.

Psychologist Daniel Goleman defined EQ as having five key components:

  • Self-awareness: The ability to identify and understand your own emotions, moods and drives, along with their effects on others.
  • Self-regulation: The ability to control or redirect impulses and moods, as well as the capacity to suspend judgement.
  • Motivation: A passion to work that goes beyond money or status, coupled with the energy and persistence to pursue goals.
  • Empathy: The ability to anticipate and understand the emotional makeup of other people, and the skill to treat people according to their emotional reactions.
  • Social Skills: Proficiency in managing relationships and building networks, while finding common ground with people different from you.

If you’re motivated to improve your EQ, choose one of the dimensions where you see gaps and start your development there.

  • The 80/20 Rule: Like many of the professionals I work with, I am a recovering perfectionist. I was introduced to the 80/20 rule during my time in corporate communications, which states we are better off delivering a solution meeting 80% of the need than failing by trying to deliver a perfect solution. At that point, we’ve met 0% of the need. I strive for excellence when time permits, but perfectionism is a trap that can hamper productivity and wellbeing.
  • Be Your Own Best Friend: Oftentimes in business, success is followed by a demand for more. I experienced this when I secured a large donation. After sharing the news with a board member, he replied, “Well you’ll just have to up your target for next year.” Even now, that response feels deflating. This reaction isn’t necessarily because supervisors don’t appreciate your work — some are better than others at showing this. In demanding and intense workplace cultures, it’s common for wins to go uncelebrated. When this happens, take time to recognize and celebrate your wins. Practice self-talk and coaching that reinforces your strengths and provides positive reinforcement to keep morale high.  
  • Self-benchmark: When I first started my career, I wanted to advance quickly and dealt with professional jealousy. It was difficult to see others promoted or afforded opportunities I wanted. When I stopped comparing myself and my achievements to others, I felt 10 pounds lighter. My motivation to succeed became purer, because it was based on what I wanted and not about outperforming others. If you’re going to compare yourself to someone, use your past self as a benchmark. Would that person be proud of what you’ve accomplished?  
  • Always Ask for Help: Part of my perfectionist tendencies meant I never wanted to look weak or that I didn’t have the answers. Because of that, I was late to building a network of support. When I finally shifted my mindset and asked others for ideas, I was often stunned by the quality of the advice I received. It was so much better than what I could have come up with on my own. Asking for help improved my quality of work, got me out of slumps faster and built trust with those around me.

3 Traits to Borrow From Senior Leaders

While I can’t predict where your career will take you, there are a few more essential skills to help you navigate your career. These are three skills I’ve observed in senior leaders and my peers who advanced rapidly to establish impressive careers. 

  • Grit: This is defined by psychologist Angela Duckworth as the passion and perseverance for long-term goals. She revolutionized how we think of success and leadership with her book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” and viral TED Talk, reveling that the trait is a significant predictor of success. Having grit signifies a mental strength and willingness to work hard. It encompasses drive, determination, motivation and passion, especially when things get tough. Grit reflects your ability to manage stress and emotions while working toward primary goals.
  • Resilience: Closely tied to grit, resilience focuses on how well we recover after experiencing failure. Winston Churchill once said, “Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” I think of resilience in the same way. How quickly can we shake off a loss and regulate negative emotions? What can we learn from each failure to ensure we not only bounce back, but we bounce forward with more knowledge, skill and ability than before?
  • Cultivating Executive Presence: This invaluable asset combines self-confidence, poise and authenticity, inspiring confidence in others and guiding them toward a common goal. Leaders with executive presence display grace under pressure, remaining calm and focused regardless of the task at hand. The earlier you can cultivate this, the more you’ll stand out among your peers.

I hope you find these insights helpful in navigating workplace challenges and turning them into opportunities for growth. To the young communication professional reading this, you are the future of our profession and I can’t wait to see what you’ll achieve. I, and so many others, are in your corner.

With love,
Alyssa