Learn How to 'Re-Story' Your Life
Bruce Feiler provocatively writes, “The most valuable skill today is no longer how to have a career. It’s how not to have a career.” Times are changing, which is no less evident than in the workplace. As church coaches at Chemistry Staffing, we see so many factors have been and are converging to create an atmosphere of significant change. This affects and influences our attitude and approach to work, determining whether or not we are living in a post-career world.
Some of the elements and influences include:
- AI
- Automation and digital growth
- Hybrid and remote work
- Focus on employee well-being
- Empowerment and engagement
- Gig and global economy
- DEI
- Multi-generational workforce (people are living longer)
- Environmental sustainability
All of these factors contribute to the need, and in many cases, necessity, for people to be able to pivot, flex, and adapt when entering and continuing in the workforce. Long gone is the day when you could have a 30-plus-year career in the same industry and role and retire with a Rolex watch and ample retirement funds.
We are experiencing what Feiler calls “workquakes.” He defines a workquake as “a moment of disruption, inflection, or reevaluation that redirects our work … they are more plentiful, more varied, start earlier, run later, last longer, and touch us more deeply than most people expect; and … as destabilizing and scary as workquakes feel when we’re in one, they’re also invitations to reexamine our priorities and opportunities for growth and renewal. Above all, workquakes are de-storying events that summon us to re-story our lives.”
I have been through many workquakes, times where I had to learn to dance in the rain, some of which have resulted in losing work due to downsizing and budget cuts. Early in my career, I experienced what I believed to have been a toxic workplace situation where I was forced to step away, which made me question my vocation trajectory and ask, “Do I want to stay in this field of work?” I continued in pastoral and church leadership for nearly thirty years, though I never got a Rolex watch. If I did, I would probably sell it to bring my retirement to where it should be : ). Whatever our journey has been, I believe we are moving into a post-career world where we need to be at least prepared to experience “de-storying events” and ready to “re-story” our lives.
How do we re-story our lives? When our story experiences a plot twist that causes us to question any level of career trajectory we believe we had in place, how do we re-adjust and recalibrate in a way that serves us who we are at our core? Fieler, in his book The Search, provides guidance here. We need to ask ourselves six questions (and I strongly encourage you to get a copy of The Search
to work through these questions more deeply):
- Who Is Your Who? I want to be the kind of person who … It’s not about starting with Why? What? and so forth. It’s about starting with Who? Who do you want to be? What is the character that you want to embody and express? At our core, we all want to make a difference for good. But this requires our character to be in a process of change, transformation, and healing for good.
- What Is Your What? I want to do work that … What kind of work do you want to do, or more specifically, what do you want to do with what you do? What do you want your contribution to be? What would you love to create and to establish?
- When Is Your When? I’m in a moment in my life when … Here, we come to the matter of timing. Is there an element of urgency involved? Is now the time to do what you sense needs to be done? Can it wait? Is there a better time to do this?
- Where Is Your Where? I want to be in a place that … Place has power, and place is about the environment and location you want to be. It could be I want to be able to work remotely, to have a job in the Pacific Northwest, to be part of a company that empowers and develops their staff to be in a context where I can exercise my passions, and so on.
- Why Is Your Why? My purpose right now is … What are your core values and convictions, and how do they inform and shape what you are called to do in this season of life? This question gets to what I need to be doing; what is my should (without shoulding on yourself)?
- How Is Your How? The best advice I have for myself right now is … The above questions converge and overlap, but at the end of the day, after you have worked through them, the key is how to move forward—what action steps do I need to take? What means must I take to create and experience meaning in my work?
Re-storying ourselves is never a solo journey, even though we need to drive it forward. What advice and wisdom would those close to you and whom you trust give you as you work through the questions? It’s not about climbing the success ladder or gaining a level of status; it’s about crafting a story that champions who you are and want to be, and stories are always written in community.
I would love to connect if I can help you navigate and work through a season of transition and change.