Your Professional Development Sweet Spot

1. Inner compass

At the center of the wheel is your inner compass. This includes your values, sense of purpose, core personality traits, and strengths. In a world of change, these core attributes are what anchor you to yourself and inform the way you adapt to the world around you.

Consider Henry, a successful freelance consultant. Henry is an INTJ on the Meyers-Briggs and an Analytical Achiever in the StrengthsFinder. He values professional autonomy, access to nature, and time with his kids. Taken together, these make up his compass. Gaining a clearer understanding of his compass has helped Henry identify the types of client engagements in which he’ll thrive. “Now I understand why I felt such a pull towards self-employment,” he says with a smirk. “It suits me perfectly.”

Around the wheel are eight additional success levers:

2. Network

Even the weaker ties in your network can be powerful sources of information, opportunities, and deals. Henry’s network draws from his church group, old classmates, and various professional groups in his industry and in the Denver area. Last week, Henry tapped his network to help a client find a tax attorney for a complex issue. “A lot of my job as a consultant is to be a connector,” he notes.

3. Work relationships

Relationships with supervisors, direct reports, mentors and clients directly impact success. As a self-employed professional, Henry’s most important work relationships are with his top three clients and the handful of other consultants he partners with on engagements, a key source of new projects for him. Two years ago, he started sending them birthday cards and holiday baskets to nurture those relationships.

4. Skills

Skills form a core part of your personal value proposition, and adding new ones is a time-tested strategy to advance. Henry’s oldest son Caleb studied political science at Colorado State and struggled to find a job after graduating. The next fall he enrolled in a developer bootcamp and now works as a junior software engineer in Boulder.

5. Emotional well-being

Traditional career development programs frequently ignore the emotional dimension, but our home lives and sense of well-being can have a remarkable impact on performance.

“Every morning, I felt like crawling into a hole and not getting out,” Henry explained, recalling the period after wife left him. “My work suffered, my health suffered, everything suffered until I gradually scraped my way out of it.”

6. Physical energy

In The Power of Full Engagemen, the authors argue that physical energy, like emotional well-being, is essential to performing at peak state. Henry’s biggest challenge here is sleep. When he goes through periods of insomnia, he simply isn’t as productive at work, or as pleasant. Minimizing insomnia is critical to his success.

7. Side projects

Side projects are the work equivalent of extracurricular activities. These are amazing (and sometimes underrated) sources of new skills, experiences, connections, and inspiration.

Five years ago, Henry organized a youth leadership program for his church. Two years later, the experience would help him expand a contract with a client who was having a difficult time retaining Millennials.

8. Personal brand

Personal branding is about managing your reputation and telling your story, regardless of the medium. Henry mocks the concept, noting he doesn’t blog or tweet. But when I ask him how he promotes his business, he’s quick to mention speaking at industry conferences, collecting references from past clients, and updating his website and LinkedIn profile. “That’s personal branding too,” I pointed out.

9. Productivity & time management

The ability to set goals and priorities, and effectively leverage time, is where the rubber meets the road. Nothing else matters if you can't execute.

When Henry first started his consulting practice, there was little structure in his work and increasing demands at home. He quickly realized that managing his time and productivity were essential to making his business successful. He’s now outsourced things like bookkeeping and data analysis that aren’t effective uses of his time.