“the known” and step into “the unknown” was the first stride down what has been a transformative and invigorating path toward the work I do now.
HOW CAN YOU TELL YOU ARE STUCK?
Stasis, stagnation, a sense of being stymied or sedated—these are telltale signs that your mind or soul is crying out for a change. The longing for change usually appears within us before we know how to bring it about—and we rarely know the type of “change” we really need. It's just that something's gotta give. But inertia can be an overpowering force that keeps us in place.
We may feel dread and anxiety when we should be feeling anticipation and excitement. Other times, it can be less dramatic. We'll feel a general flatness, and a lack of zest for the things we know should make us happy. You don't have to call it depression (though it may be), but it is the metaphor of living in black and white versus living in color.
In some cases, the problem is that we may set artificially low expectations for ourselves. We just accept that, when it comes to our jobs or our personal lives, there is a certain level of dissatisfaction (the existential toll) that one pays for a stable life and a steady paycheck.
These moments, when you candidly consider whether you are fulfilled, should not be ignored. They are alarm bells that announce it's time for some serious introspection. What do you need? What do you want? And how will you attain it? Only by honest examination can you find the courage to make a change.
It's not merely a question of the work you do. While many of my clients seek me out for career guidance, the problem or challenge just as often lies with some other aspect of their life. Some may believe for a lifetime that career is the primary vehicle for self-actualization, only to discover that the intellectual and creative satisfaction they desire comes from a realm outside of the office. Many of my clients are executives who are happy with their career and comfortable in their current role, but seek new means of success or new challenges to invigorate that role, and make it resonate with their personal strengths.
Moreover, achieving change is not merely a matter of “goal setting,” which is an activity that is perhaps not always understood in the self-development and coaching world. You can't goal-set your way out of an emotional rut because the process of setting and pursuing goals, as conventionally practiced, is inherently crippled by a myopic oversight; these methodologies emphasize articulating goals but rarely ask you to interrogate why you're chasing them in the first place. That is the gaping hole at the center of many “self-improvement” regimens: they don't really examine what the individual holds dear, what he values, or what makes him tick. It is vital to have structure, but it has to be full circle—not linear.
THE GAME PLAN SYSTEM
The answer to this conundrum is the powerful life transformation system I've developed from coaching hundreds of clients (as well as much trial and error in my own life). It's called the Game Plan System, or GPS for short. The acronym is no accident, as the GPS symbolizes an existential navigational tool.
If you don't have a fixed destination, you're merely driving in circles, wasting gas, and squandering time; the longer you stay on the road purposelessly, the more likely it is your trip will end in a highway collision or roadside breakdown. Call it “itinerant inertia,” a rather paradoxical phenomenon if you think about it—being constantly in motion, while at the same time, feeling that you're going nowhere.
It's a widespread, perhaps universal problem, and it afflicts highly accomplished people, as well. It means doing the same thing, and always moving, but never really knowing where you are going, or why. It might look fine from the outside (maybe you have a nice car), but you are the driver, and you need a meaningful trip and a true destination. This must be overcome if one is to get the most from life.
The GPS, therefore, is an apt metaphor: a navigational tool that helps you choose an objective and maps out the route to get there (circumventing roadblocks and handling detours that crop up along the way). In Chapter 2, I'll explain the GPS in depth. Throughout the book, I'll detail how you can build a GPS that allows you to discover and find the means of pursuing genuine purpose in your career and in your life.
IT'S NOT ABOUT “SUCCESS”
One factor that distracted me from discovering what really drove me was that I performed well in almost every job I had, even as I moved from industry to industry. I was committed to my work, but still felt a persistent and perplexing disconnect between career success and personal satisfaction. And after years of coaching, I've learned that my story is not at all uncommon. Many people will stay in a job because they are, by all standards, “good at it”—whether or not they are happy in their role or company. If a person is not gratified with his work, at least in some kind of meaningful way, he will feel it. This dissatisfaction will bleed into other areas of his life, and he will feel drained, and out of balance. With all of the time and energy we put into our careers, it should be something that benefits your life, not adds a burden to it. Ideally, our work should align with our talents, interests, and values. It is how we express ourselves, and a way we create and interact with the world.
In 2020, Gallup released the results of their Q12 Meta Analysis 20-year employee engagement study. According to their research 58% of the workforce (they studied over 2.7 million workers worldwide) are “unengaged,” and another 13% is “actively disengaged.” These employees put time, but not energy or passion, into their work. To be “engaged” means a person is motivated in her job because she sees value in her efforts, is recognized for them, and has opportunities for growth. Engagement signifies a worker is committed to what she does. Most of us have seen an “actively disengaged” co-worker who leaves early, complains (or maybe rarely speaks), perhaps talks about greener pastures elsewhere, and does the absolute minimum required to get a paycheck. This person may not be very reliable, and will quickly leave her company for a slightly better offer.2 They may perform their job competently, but as my coach Peter shared with me when I started working with him: just because you are good at something, doesn't mean you should do it.
Take Darren, one of my earlier coaching clients, who has also remained a good friend. At the time we met, Darren was a portfolio manager at a hedge fund– a type of money management firm that employs higher-risk methods in the hopes of realizing large capital gains. Darren's charter was to get the highest return on the money he managed. As an expert short seller, that often meant betting against a company's success.
On the first day of coaching, he confessed he was sick and tired of shorting Chipotle stock—waiting for a bad quarter or a salmonella outbreak so he could get out of the position at the right time to make money for the fund. That can be a very negative worldview, setting up to strike when others find failure.
We worked through specific exercises and identified what would be meaningful for him. Darren was drawn, in the end, toward working in nonprofit or some sort of service. He wanted the opportunity to do some good. Contribute more, in his eyes. Others would indeed see “good” in betting against an organization—sending a message to an organization that they need to do better. It is one of the tools of accountability. It's not my, or anybody's, role to tell somebody what their definition of “good” is. Rather, it is to foster a discussion—and a partnership—to help them realize what it is for them. For Darren, he identified what would generate more energy and provide more meaning to his day-to-day.
Darren is now a curator for an internationally renowned speaking organization, where he finds innovative and inspiring speakers and puts together the slate for conferences. He gets to spend his time finding guests who can both entertain and enlighten, and then help these speakers prepare the
