#492 Never Live the Same Year Twice: How to Get Unstuck

0:00Teens share everything. That may include the bacteria that can cause meningococcal disease known as meningitis. Even if your teen's been vaccinated in the past, they could still be missing meningitis vaccinations. Ask your teen's doctor or visit meningitis.com today. Sponsored by GSK. Hi, I'm Sarah. And I'm Helen. And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast. Every week we talk about a different topic to do with work and share ideas and actions to help all of us navigate these squiggly careers without a bit more confidence and control. and we're recording a series for the summer. And so we want to do something slightly different because we recognise that work might feel a bit different in the summer and might be juggling some different things, holidays, childcare, kind of lots of different work priorities.

0:41So these episodes are part of our summer series where we are taking quotes that have inspired our career and turning them into actionable advice for everybody who is listening. And in each episode, we will take one of those quotes and the other person will interview. So it's going to be Sarah's quote today, which she will reveal in a second. and I get the opportunity to interview Sarah. Have I ever interviewed you before? I don't know if you have. We'll see how this goes. It's like a live experiment, completely unprepared. Okay, well, let's start with question number one. What is the quote that has inspired your career?

1:14So the quote is, never live the same year twice. What does that mean to you? Well, I first heard the quote for a very impressive lady called Nicola Mendelsohn. And I think for me, never live the same year twice was me connecting the dots between letting go of ladder like thinking for my career and sort of embracing this idea of a squiggly career. Because in lots of ways, I'm really attracted to the ladder, which is it's ambitious, it's achievement orientated. I want to progress. For a while, I wondered whether progress or progression was actually one of my values. I decided achievement was a better word um but I think I was trying to sort of reconcile in my mind well I don't want to let go of my ambitions and work is a big part of who I am and I enjoy the work that I do but I do recognize this ladder is starting to feel limiting but how you know how do I bring those kind of two two worlds together and I think hearing never live the same year twice I was like oh okay this is much more about me you know we talk about create don't wait in terms of your career and your job it just stuck with me as I can be more intentional about your career and that doesn't need to look like a change in job title doesn't need to look like a change of company doesn't even have to look like a change of job every year you can make the commitment to never live the same year twice and you can deliver on it what have you done differently in your career or life as a result of that quote?

2:52I think much more about doing things I've not done before partly because I think I know a bit about how good it is to be a beginner but also because I do find those moments of doing something for the first time there's that really good question that Kath Bishop asked in her book The Long Win when was the last time you did something new or when was the last time you did something for the first time and I do recognize that it is so easy to get stuck in habits patterns doing things you've done before and there's that kind of great phrase that which I always think feels really harsh it's sort of the stick version of the quote that I've chosen so if the carrot version is never lived the same year twice I feel like the stick version is familiarity breeds complacency and I'm like oh yeah like that's the kind of stick yeah that's quite harsh yeah it is harsh but I also find it quite interesting the thing that I do differently is I do look ahead to a year and I'm like right what do I want to try out what do I don't want to do differently what do I want to do for the first time and then it it then informs a lot of the actions that then I take.

3:56So clearly it's a quote that has made a big difference to you and your development why do you think it is something that could help other people? Well I was reflecting on this and I think we often ask people at the start of workshops or programs that we're doing what's one word to describe your career so far um or to describe how you're feeling about work at the moment and you do hear people say stalling and stuck a lot I think that is kind of natural we all have those moments where perhaps you feel like you're plateauing a bit but if you have this idea of never living the same year twice I think it helps you to get unstuck and it helps you to make progress because you can all like we can all do this in some way um Even if our jobs are quite habit based and we do a lot of the same things and there's lots of routines, there's always kind of some newness that I think you can find and that I think is really good for us.

4:51And if I think about what does it look like to be resilient in our squiggly careers, you don't want to do the same again. You don't get stuck in the status quo. I think that increases your career risk and decreases your resilience. I think that is a lovely, is a lovely, compelling question. so um let's move from the question never lived the same year twice the sort of statement of that into into specific actions that people can take if they find that inspiring how do they like activate it in their work and career as regular listeners will know i'm very anti manifesting or manifestation so i think if you just go oh never lived the same year twice and then i'm just going to hope that that will happen in my experience that's that's not true and so i do think you've got to be more intentional about that um but some of what I'm going to describe I think does actually get quite close to manifesting so I think there's a good critical challenge that you and some of our listeners could could maybe have of me here um but I do think they're different so I think a really good propelling coach yourself question here is what do I want to be true in 12 months time that isn't true today and for that to work really well I really recommend a mind map get get these thoughts out of your head, get them onto a bit of paper.

6:12And the thing that I find from doing this is naturally, perhaps it's the way my brain works, by doing that fast forwarding, you're kind of fast forwarding through your year, you then naturally come back to the present day and go, well, what do I need to do now to invest in future Sarah? Because again, most of the time, you do need to look ahead and think about, I don't know, are there people you need to talk to? do you need to spend some time on ideas do you need to book into a course that you really want to do whatever it might be um and usually you can't turn those things on straight away so I do think you need this moment or perhaps I need this moment of thinking and reflection where I fast forward I get the kind of mind map down and then I think I do the you know the what so what now two questions or what does that mean for me and it's not like I map it all out perfectly I think I have more themes and kind of territories and then I do I kind of do the so what now and that gets me to some actions and then I've got sort of three more kind of practical actions the first one is based on um this is new for me this year so though I've known this quote for a while this is a new insight and it's based on a conversation I had earlier in the year with Katie Milkman um psychologist who's sort of really interested in like change and behavior change and she talked about this idea of the fresh start effect which is essentially any moment can be a fresh start effect um but it helps you to kind of to maybe do something different or to try something out so a fresh start effect could be september so if you are listening to this in august september is quite a natural back to school back to work moment even if you're like i mean before i had kids i always went on holiday in september but i still think i came back from holiday in september feeling quite like oh it's so new pencil case um yeah so it could be a september it could be a monday it could just be one that's based on your life as in i'm on holiday next week so my fresh start effect is going to be next monday birthday right it's my birthday this month it's going to be a fresh start like exactly anything like that and i think you can use that thinking as a prompt for finding small firsts so even though you never live the same year twice I think feels quite zoomed out never living the same year twice a lot of that is about finding small firsts doing things in your week that you've not done before and that could be a new way of working experimenting with someone doing a meeting in a different way a new piece of tech if I think about this year so far never living the same year twice I've experimented with more technology this year than I probably have in the last three years and that's not all AI I know the default is that's all AI it's not all AI it's using video in two or three different ways it's us thinking about the podcast and how technology can kind of help with the podcast so if that's about the what you know like what are you doing in terms of never living the same year twice my second action is about the who so who can help you to never live the same year twice so who are you spending time with and make sure that you've got enough newness and novelty sometimes I described as weak ties so the people you don't know as well who know things that you don't know and know people that you don't know um and I have to be the first one that we describe first action that's just me like I'm naturally more like that this second one would not happen if I didn't think about it I don't want to meet anyone new really I I'm introverted I've got some very good friends and I'm very happy with those people and so what that then does is limit your ability to never live the same year twice because you're limiting your learning you're limiting your possibilities so I think very consciously about how how do I do this how do I find new people in new places and actually when I really thought about this for me I take quite a structured approach I'm not a I'm not a spontaneous person I'm never again I don't hope it's going to happen I think about the communities I want to be part of the networks I want to join I very intentionally do some things outside of Amazing If really with this in mind so if I think about this year and never living the same year twice I've really thought about I've joined two boards of two companies outside of Amazing If and part of my motivation for that is to learn and to spend time with some different people I know this year I'm not going to live the same year twice because I'm spending some of my time with an employee-owned trust an organization that has transitioned to being an employee-owned trust and being on the board of a company in a way that I've kind of not done not done before it's often actually not about my day job actually that was my other observation everything I looked at around not living the same year twice around the who was always stuff that kind of went beyond my day-to-day and was more about my development I guess being on the other side of it as someone that does work with you in the day job I see that come back like not you know you by spending time with those people it results in doing things different in the day job so I definitely see kind of how that how that loops around what's the final action well the final action is one that I don't think I do very well so I thought I would share it as a kind of gap that I've got so I thought I've got the what and the who and then I think never living the same year twice is also a bit about the where so variety is one of my values and I get a lot of energy from spending time in different places and spaces and so sometimes I think never living the same year twice is about visiting new places or just spending time in new places and being really inspired by that and I had a moment in my career where I did that a lot and I am starting to kind of creep I am creeping back or rediscovering which sounds less weird um I am I am rediscovering that I think for myself and I think to again be kind to yourself it is harder to do it was harder to do at the start of our company and when you've got really young kids and now my kid is a bit older and I've got a bit more support I can think about this again I think and I do I find this like very inspiring for myself and for my career but also just for my life and so one reflection I wrote down was that I've never been to the British Library ever and I was thinking I feel like that's my spiritual home I applied for a job at the British Library once didn't even get an interview but you know when you're like there's no reason why I've not done that it's in London I live near London I've walked past it I know where it is and I'm pretty sure you can just go in I think um even if you can't I'll just go and join I'd love a membership card for the British Library any final words on never living the same year twice for our listeners I think don't feel pressured to necessarily go through this process by yourself um I I am quite individual and quite independent in my approach so I do a lot of thinking by myself but I do have a Helen in my life to kind of run run things by but again I I don't run a lot of these things by Helen to be honest like you're just like no but I think that is kind of unique to me and other people might work in that way as well but I think this is a brilliant thing that you could do with someone you really trust like this is a great thing to chat through with a mentor great thing to talk about with someone just you trust at work and you get on really well with if you both connected with this quote have some conversations around it um yeah don't feel like you kind of have to do this solo I'm always quite aware that I'm quite like a solo person but you are a lovely person and i and i and i learn a lot from your solo your solo reflection and so that is the end of today's episode is the second one in our series so in the first one i talked about um run your own race we've obviously just done never live the same year twice and in our third episode in series i'm going back to my quote which is challenge your limits don't limit your challenges and sarah will be asking me some questions to understand that quote a bit more looking forward to it i'm enjoying these conversations quite a nice quite a nice change of format for the summer thank you so much for listening everyone back with you again soon and bye for now bye everybody