Like many people, I believe in failing forward and making better mistakes along this journey of life. For me, a better mistake comes from trying after necessary research, a new attempt to do things differently from the first iteration, and learning from the experience without being reduced in some fundamental way. A bad mistake, by contrast, can take many forms including doing the same thing repeatedly without implementing any mitigants or risking more than I can afford to lose (financially, emotionally, physically or integrity-wise).

How adept are you at identifying the mistakes you’re making? Are you surrounded by colleagues, managers or an alternative support system that draw these issues to your attention? We could all do with some help in spotting the issues that are unknowingly blocking our success. As my contribution to the effort, here are 5 mistakes I’ve noticed that pop up in how we manage our careers that should be avoided.

1. Not getting enough exposure to make well-informed career decisions.

The product suite, the type of work, its value drivers and the right environment to do it in are some of the most critical areas where one needs a good internal and industry read. You can get job variety from one or more companies in one or more countries, or get exposure through internal networks and industry associations. The important takeaways are knowing enough of what’s out there to:

• Gauge whether you’re satisfied with your current situation and capabilities;

• Have a good idea of your next career move, including creating a new role for yourself if what you want to do doesn’t already exist;

• Manage your career with confidence, not function in fear.

Keeping a steady pulse of what’s happening around you goes a long way to demystify stressful choices and ignites creativity for identifying exciting career risks worth taking. 

2. Spending more time improving weaknesses than on honing strengths. There comes a time when all of us are best served by doubling down on our strengths and improving on our weaknesses to the required proficiency where they cease to undermine our positive professional equity. Excellence and mastery comes from our strengths. Weaknesses keep us humble and give reference to where our true comparative advantage lies.   

3. Mis-directed growth.

As we leave our comfort zone, not all growth is good growth. In our later careers, we can get mis-directed by pursuing skills and experiences that don’t play to our strengths and potentially have no actionable benefits outside of their novelty. A strength can be expertise in an industry niche or a transferrable skill such as negotiation. Trying new things is essential to career longevity and enjoyment, but some experimenting should happen in a manner that broadens your perspective without distracting from depth of competence e.g. as a secondment, training courses, hobby or side hustle. So put simply, grow your strengths. 

4. Being overly-reliant on your manager to direct your career growth.

Even the most well-intentioned manager is not perfectly attuned to all the needs of all their colleagues all the time. It’s not personal. If you know what your next career step should look like, or if there is a specific problem area you want to resolve, advocate for it.

Waiting for your manager to suggest what path to take is problematic for 2 main reasons: 1) they might not know you well enough to suggest truly stretching opportunities; 2) if all opportunities come to you conveniently packaged, your sense of achievement could be diminished.

Career moves need a certain amount of positive friction as you identify, strategise, advocate and secure. 

Having said that, a healthy dose of promotions or recommendations from your managers / peers to pursue certain roles is an affirming signal that you’re recognisably valued. Both types of career interventions are needed; the point is not to wait for the second type to happen. You don’t need permission to be ambitious.      

5. Failing to calibrate how to make your presence felt.

This has always mattered but a higher reliance on hybrid work has opened up stronger emphasis on the need to be just as impactful in our digital body language (eg. in virtual meetings or email style) as we are in person. Inversely, digital life is affecting the quality of in-person interaction as some people struggle to keep eye contact courtesy of excessive screen time. Win some, lose some!

Only you would know if you have been making better or bad mistakes in these or other areas. Having considered this list, also take stock of whether you have enough wins to counter-balance the issues that are affecting you. This list is not exhaustive but rather what I see as most relevant for life in 2022. 

Mistakes of some sort are par for the course and I make my fair share as well. Life doesn’t get easier as we succeed in some areas or make better mistakes, but we can improve our capacity to cope when new difficulties arise.

What’s a pressing career mistake you are personally affected by, or have noticed around you?