Keep Calm and Work On Yourself
Why this is my new mantra for 2025, and a glimpse from a life design class with high school students.
Happy June, everyone! Summer is in full swing (for everyone reading in the northern hemisphere), and that means finishing one school year, jumping into summer activities, and getting ready for the fall. I’m sharing some reflections this month on seeing how some students have wrapped up their spring semester, and also a piece of advice on how to hold onto your sanity in the Age of AI (in case I’m not the only one who needs it)!
Life Design Is For Everyone
Last week, I had the honor of being invited to the life design class showcase at VIS Experimental High School in downtown Taipei. I met many students (all juniors in high school) planning to head to the US, Canada, Australia, and other countries for college. They were at the tail end of a whole semester spent constructing and reflecting on their futures. My friend Rosalyn Shih, who is their instructor, guided the students through the life design process (thanks to the Life Design Lab at Stanford), including career exploration tools like the Golden Triangle, ikigai, and creating 5-year Odyssey Plans.
I sat down with a number of students who shared their Hero’s Journey from where they were at the beginning of the course to now having finished it. It was fascinating to see the range of student responses. There were both students who had thought they didn't have to worry about what to do in the future for a while yet, so they didn't think they needed this class, as well as students who already had such a firm idea of what they wanted to do that they also felt like they didn't need this class.
(When I think back myself to high school, I wouldn't have taken such a class myself: I would have fallen into the first camp, firmly convinced I could definitely wait until college to figure out what that really looked like.)
The irony is that as an adult, not only do I spend time advising high school students to do exactly this (spend time intentionally thinking about what I want to do in the future and why), but I also now recognize that this is a valuable exercise with frameworks that are great for literally anyone at any age.
Again and again, I found myself asking these students these sorts of questions:
What have you learned about yourself through this class (or experience)?
Why do you want to pursue the career path that you have in mind right now? Why is that important to you, compared to all the other things that you might want to do?
In college and beyond, how might you open yourself up to new possibilities and potential career paths?
How might your potential plans help you grow as a human being?
The point of asking these questions is not to know all the answers definitively, or to have them anytime soon. The point of these questions is to develop a habit of questioning, reflecting, and better understanding our own goals, values, beliefs, and identity.
As a student and early-career professional, you have a lot of reasons to say yes to almost any opportunity that comes along right now: going to college, attending a class, trying out an internship, doing a part-time job… and no matter what industry/ field/ institution you go into, you’re going to learn a ton.
But at some point, you have to start being a bit more choosy - why this commitment? Why devote this amount of time? You have a finite amount of energy for yourself, your hobbies, your family and friends, and yes, your career. Why make the decision to prioritize something over other things? It’s best to start asking yourself these sorts of questions now, so you can better understand your why, and put yourself in a position to make intentional decisions in the future that better reflect you and your vision for the future.
Will your answers to these questions change? Absolutely. There is no one right answer that will stick for your entire life - different things and jobs and opportunities will matter to you at different times and different reasons. All the more reason to get good at questioning yourself, and staying in touch with yourself as you change.
And before you ask, no, second-guessing yourself about what you want to do right now is not going to work. We can only make decisions based on where we are right now in life and what we value at this moment. They say that life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards. There’s no way to just skip ahead to what you really want to do, because what you really want to do is different at different stages of your life, and just as you don’t want to skip ahead to being 50 right now, you also don’t need to have the same self-knowledge of yourself that you would at 50 either.
According to the ancient poet Rumi, “As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.” Only through action can we better understand where we are. So go out, try things, and reflect on it!
My New Mantra for 2025, and Why It Should Be Yours Too!
This past month, I’ve had a few coaching calls where I have heard and seen and in some cases felt the panic.
“I’m graduating college next year, so I’m applying for jobs right now, and I don’t know what I really should be focused on.”
“I’m going into senior year of high school, and I don’t know how to describe myself and what I want to do in these college essays - I feel like I’m all over the place.”
“I can’t get started on anything in particular - as soon as I begin learning about something, I question if I really should be spending my time on this, and I freeze up.”
As I listened to these students unburden themselves and be honest with where they are right now, I reflected that I was feeling a similar loss of control, but about something a little different. In the last few months, I’ve had about a dozen conversations about generative AI with friends, fellow educators and coaches, and other people out there in the world, and to be honest, it gives me a lot of anxiety, not unlike what I’m hearing about from students.
Everywhere I turn, there are new reports about the end of education, and how AI tools for building resumes and cover letters or for interviewing and coaching are removing the need for jobs like mine. Every day when I wake up and look at LinkedIn, there are people sharing new AI start-ups or tools that they're casting as the new “it” for their industry, their field, and in some ways, for the whole world. The messaging is endless: without AI, you’re going to fall behind. Without AI, you’ll be nothing, whether you’re an engineer, marketer, product manager, consultant, or career coach.
While I’m not averse to learning more AI tools and getting more proficient in it, I also find troubling things all around me: evidence that students are using AI to respond to me for even the slightest thing, whether I send them emails or LinkedIn messages; articles about how generative AI is lowering people’s cognitive development, and most of all my own sense of disappointment when I can tell when something’s been written by AI, and it’s because it’s nice and polished but says pretty much nothing. Is this really the “improvement” that everyone seems to be pushing?
Transitioning to the world of AI for someone like me, who has been in the working world for more than a decade already, is very eerie, and sometimes over the last few months, I’ve experienced similar flashes of dread and unrest, not knowing what this big change means for my profession and the world. Fortunately, I realized that I should be taking some of the same advice that I give to my students.
Here’s what I said to the students who shared those quotes with me about being uncertain, questioning, and all mixed up:
At this stage (and many stages ahead), there are so many unknowns about the world, like what the labor market will be when you graduate, what AI is going to do to your job prospects, how likely you are to get laid off from a certain job or industry, what the salary for product managers is going to be in the future… it never stops! The list of uncertainties (and things in your Circle of Concern) are absolutely staggering. This is exactly why our mental health gets worse the more we scroll through our social media networks. (Including you, LinkedIn!)
Keep Calm and Work On Yourself is the solution I propose. It’s not a be-all end-all solution, but it is a beautiful one that you can choose and will never be a bad choice. Here, we are coming back to the Circle of Control.
When the world seems unpredictable and crazy, the one firm footing in this world that will always yield dividends is to spend time better understanding yourself.
Not sure what employers really want in terms of skills? That’s okay - pick a skill that will definitely be of interest to you (maybe it’s related to something you already know), apply yourself through an online class or a project, and pay attention to yourself to how you learn and what you like about it as you pick it up and become more adept. This self-understanding will serve you well when you need to learn other skills, and now you know how to do something cool.
Wondering how can you stand out compared to everyone in the job market? Don’t try to control other people’s strengths - focus on sharpening your own. Find out what you’re good at, and explore more ways to grow in that. If you’re not sure, ask people around you where they think you excel, and see if they have recommendations for what you should do with that energy and inclination.
Worried about all the unknown developments that are going to happen in your industry? Instead, spend time getting curious about all the unknown potential that you hold within you. Maybe you have what it takes to be excellent at things that you haven’t tried yet. Maybe your dream career is out there waiting to be discovered when you take a risk and give yourself the chance to try. Maybe your next networking conversation with someone is going to open you up to something you’ve never heard of before.
This month, I am giving myself permission to not feel like I have to stay up to date on the latest AI developments if it gives me a lot of anxiety. I’m giving myself permission to spend more things on things I really like, like learning ceramics (making pottery is the very opposite of AI sometimes, and I’ll share more about that in a future post). I am leaving the door open to getting better at using AI tools, if that might benefit the students that I’m working with, but I also know that there are other things I can do to work on becoming a better, more empathetic, and insightful coach, which will definitely be better for my students.
After all, you and I will always be here. AI and tech will come, but humans will remain. Working on yourself will never be a bad investment for your time and energy. Not everything you do will get you a better job title, higher salary, or further up the career ladder. But as long as you reflect, make intentional decisions, and work on yourself, you will be further along to becoming the person you really want to be. And what is life really about, anyway?
So keep calm and work on yourself this summer, and if you want to do it together, book a call with me here!
Connie