1007: The Overachiever’s Guide to Finding More Fulfillment at Work with Megan Hellerer
Oct 31, 2024
42:02
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Megan Hellerer, a career coach and former Google executive, shares her journey from a high-achieving but unfulfilled life to finding true meaning in her work. She discusses the importance of redefining success based on personal values and urges overachievers to embrace curiosity. Megan highlights key questions to ponder before making decisions and emphasizes the need for a flexible, experimental approach to career growth. She also addresses the low levels of workplace engagement and how an 'inner navigation system' can guide individuals towards fulfilling careers.
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Quick takeaways
Focusing on curiosity rather than rigid end goals can lead to greater personal and professional fulfillment in one's career journey.
Embracing a directional mindset encourages exploration of new interests, allowing individuals to adapt and discover more meaningful paths.
Deep dives
The Pitfall of Destination-Oriented Thinking
Focusing too heavily on the end goal can hinder personal and professional fulfillment. Many individuals become stuck in their careers because they are outcome-oriented, believing they must have a clear destination before taking action. This misconception leads to excessive worry about how to achieve predetermined goals, often resulting in frustration and unfulfillment. Instead, embracing a sense of curiosity and viewing it as a guide can illuminate a more satisfying path forward.
Finding Fulfillment Through Experience
The journey toward fulfillment is often a personal exploration that requires genuine self-reflection. Megan Hellerer shares her own transformation from an overachiever dealing with panic attacks at Google to a successful career coach. By experimenting with different career paths and discovering her passion for coaching, she learned the importance of addressing what truly resonates within her. This highlights that authentic fulfillment often lies not in following a prescribed path but in daring to explore alternative directions based on personal inclination.
Embracing a Directional Approach
A key principle for navigating one's career is adopting a directional mindset rather than a rigid destination-oriented perspective. This involves focusing on the next 'directionally right' action, which allows for flexibility and adaptation rather than being tied to a singular outcome. For instance, taking small, low-stakes steps, such as pursuing new interests or networking, can lead to significant insights and opportunities. These incremental changes help in maintaining a sense of progression and open the door to new paths of interest that may not have been initially considered.
Curiosity as a Guide to Purpose
Curiosity plays a vital role in uncovering personal purpose and fulfillment. By paying attention to what piques interest, individuals can gain valuable insights into potential directions for their careers and lives. Megan emphasizes that allowing curiosity to guide choices—that is, asking whether a decision feels 'warmer' or 'colder'—can facilitate a more responsive and fulfilling approach to one's journey. Furthermore, recognizing the importance of joy and interest in the decision-making process can lead to impactful paths that enrich both personal and professional lives.
Megan Hellerer is a career coach and the author of DIRECTIONAL LIVING: A Transformational Guide to Fulfillment in Work and Life. She has led hundreds of women, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to transform their lives by transforming their careers. After checking all the traditional boxes of success—graduating at the top of her class from Stanford University and spending eight years as a Google executive—and still deeply unhappy, she quit her great-on-paper job with no plan. Now her mission is to provide others with the support and guidance that she needed when she herself was struggling.