Learning to be a Professional

This week I practiced getting into a professional mindset. I attended Praxis’ workshop called “Career Building 101” that taught me to think of my career as a discovery process, and I was able to categorize myself into a couple different career archetypes. I resonated the most with the “Mercenary” and the “Small Business Entrepreneur” types.

I began reading part four of Mastery by Robert Greene this week as well. Its general message reinforces the mindset I want to shift into, which is to approach my journey of career discovery with discipline and with a firm focus to do great work. Robert Greene emphasizes social intelligence in this portion of his book, and I think he offers great practical advice about this topic. He once said that if you review your past disappointments through a naïve perspective,  “you will focus only on what other people have done to you.. Instead, you must turn this around and begin with yourself–how you saw in others qualities they did possess, or how you ignored signs of a dark side to their nature.” It’s my favorite tip to avoid becoming blindsided by my emotions in work environments.

I’m thrilled about what I was able to accomplish this week through my deliverables. I mapped out my entire week in Google calendar, and I felt super productive doing it. I also felt like a professional for the first time in my life by utilizing a digital tool I’ve seen other professionals use before. I completed my calendar by adding recurring events, such as the Praxis workshops I attend weekly, my work schedule that frequently changes, and one-off commitments I made. 

I also managed my present and future tasks by setting up an official to-do list in Notion. I organized it with a four-category system recommended by Praxis, which was quite different from the day-by-day model I’m used to.

Apart from Praxis, I grew professionally this week when I asked my manager if she had any extra tasks for me to do. We were having a slow day at the store, and instead of wandering around passively hoping for the work to come to me, I decided to try to be more helpful. Even though this was a very easy thing for me to do, I had refrained from asking such questions in the past because I thought it would be bothersome if she had to come up with an extra task for me. Turns out, she had some inventory for me to take out to the sales floor, and both of us were glad that I asked for something to do. 

Next week in Praxis I will be creating a habit improvement plan, and I will be sharing a career case study in my newsletter. My goal is to complete these activities in a timely manner, meaning that I’ll carve out plenty of time to do good work and submit it before the deadline.