A recent Wall Street Journal article by executive coach Brad Stulberg proposed Five Principles For A Post-Pandemic You. As the title indicates, the principles are proposed for your own consumption. However, the examples Stulberg provides—“the chief physician of a large healthcare system” and “an entrepreneur who had just secured funding for her next venture”—suggest a population accustomed to having options in making career choices. Also, the generalization that “Covid has worsened the stress, anxiety and isolation of modern life” may not apply to all readers. These caveats aside, you can celebrate the main message of the article. You can also, in the spirit of the Thanksgiving weekend, apply that message to someone in a different, perhaps less fortunate, situation than your own.
The five principles are provided as a “call to groundedness” whereby you or someone you know finds “the internal strength and self-confidence that sustains you through ups and downs.” That means leaving persistent anxiety behind and “finding a way to express your authentic self in the here and now.” The principles are described below.
Accept where you are. This principle stems from the demonstrably successful “acceptance and commitment” theory promoted by University of Nevada psychologist Steven Hayes. Stulberg associates it with what Eastern wisdom has taught about a “second arrow.” The first arrow that hits you is beyond your own control. However, the second arrow is the one you fire yourself by resisting reality, by not seeing the first arrow for what it is.
Focus on the present. This principle draws on work by David Meyer, University of Michigan and colleagues. The target of this principle is that of multitasking, which has been shown to take away up to 40% of a worker’s productive time. The idea of being fully present in the activity you are presently doing is embedded in a diverse set of spiritual traditions including those of Buddhism, Taoism, Stoicism, Islam, as well as various forms of Judaism and Christianity.
Be patient with yourself. Studies on “hot streaks” by Northwestern University’s Lu Liu and co-authors suggests that most people can have a “hot streak” in their careers where their performance rises above its usual level. Those streaks are commonly founded on the depth of a person’s previous work, but the timing of a streak is unpredictable. Moreover, humans tend to practice “commission bias,” promoting action over inaction, and disrupting the patience needed for deeper appreciation.
Embrace your vulnerability. This principle draws on the pathbreaking book The Presentation Of Self in Everyday Life by the late sociologist Erving Goffman. He distinguishes between your “frontstage” self you use when interacting with others, and your private “backstage” self. The tension between those selves can be stressful. Research by Anna Bruk, University of Mannheim, and her colleagues reveals positive consequences from showing your own vulnerability, that is of revealing your backstage self.
Find community. This principle stems from philosopher Eric Fromm’s landmark book Escape From Freedom which asserted “feeling alone and isolated leads to mental disintegration.” The late John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago and colleagues wrote persuasively that humans evolved through, and still need, close-knit groups in order to thrive. Both reports were foreshadowed by St. Augustine’s 4th-century message about the ideal combination of “life and friendship.”
As noted at the start of this article, the appeal of these principles reaches beyond their application to people who are accustomed to making career decisions, and across different individual experiences with Covid.
Stulberg’s first two principles about accepting where you are in your career and focusing on the present represent the two sides of sensemaking, an approach that insists you take personal stock of your career situation, and use it as a baseline for moving forward. Being patient with yourself follows on from sensemaking, since the reality of where you are will determine what steps, most often small steps, you can take to change your present situation. That leaves embracing your vulnerability and finding community. Both of these are lacking in much career advising, yet both can support your career efforts. Embracing vulnerability can allow people get to know you more deeply. Finding community can extend the reach of your present attachments and the breadth of people to whom you can relate. The five principles of groundedness apply to you, as well as to a wider group of people relatively new to any habit of making career choices.
Turning to Covid, you need to consider your own experience with the virus before you respond to it. Overwhelmed hospital workers, first-line responders, teachers, caregivers and essential factory workers have all faced a high risk of infection. Many retail and restaurant workers and others have lost employment, and faced subsequent eviction. A larger-than-expected number seem to have chosen not to go back to the work they were doing before, and found greater fulfillment elsewhere. In contrast, information technology has allowed a large number of the workforce to work from home and be more productive from the flexibility of hours, the high quality of virtual communications and the erasure of commuting overheads. People’s experiences from Covid are a mixed bag. You need to respond to what’s happened to you.
If you can apply Stulberg’s principles to yourself, and if you appreciate they can be applied to other people, what role can you play in spreading the word? One initial task is to assign some time to do so. Another is to be ready to make a start, with straightforward questions like “What do you do?”, “How do you like it?” and “What’s Your Next Step?” to open the way toward deeper conversation. A further task is to recognize where you can help. Are there people who have already reached out to you, to whom you haven’t responded? Can you help them along with what Adam Grant calls a five-minute favor - “just a small way to add large value to other people's lives”? Can you further signal you are available to support them in a larger capacity - one where you are willing to show vulnerability in letting someone get close to you?
Letting someone get close to you can create a contrast between the separate communities to which you each relate. In turn, by sharing information across those communities you can make a personal contribution to wider understanding. Writ large, your own and other people’s wider understanding of communities other than your own can create a more blended, rather than a more polarized, society. You can succeed in your career and build a better world!
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November 28, 2021 at 09:00PM
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