📧 PivotList: Are you in a career downshift?
Join a Decelerator cohort + exploring creativity as an energy-strength
Hi Friends,
If you’re mid-career and mid-pivot but unsure how to navigate the wilderness and vertigo that can accompany these moments, I’m thrilled to share a program that my good friend co-founded called Downshift.
Downshift runs guided small group cohorts for ambitious professionals to recalibrate their relationship with work to be more intentional, authentic, and energizing. I was grateful to be a guest speaker for their last Decelerator cohort in early December :)
This program offers a wonderful, reflective support system for anyone on a sabbatical or navigating a career transition. Applications for the 7-week program, kicking off with a retreat in the Catskills, are due this Thursday, February 27th.
🎧 On taking time away and even climbing down the career ladder, over on the Free Time podcast I loved my conversations with about the importance of sabbatical planning, and with on her accidental sabbatical.
You might also enjoy the episode with on engineering serendipity—one of my other favorite topics :)
Now back to our ongoing Strengthscope series!
So far, we’ve looked at Collaboration and Common Sense as energy-strengths (or not, if they drain you). Next, let’s take a look at . . .
💪 Strengthscope Deep Dive: Creativity
Is creativity an energizer or a drainer for you?
Scenario: You have two 2-hour brainstorming meetings on the calendar today: one for coming up with new ideas to solve a problem, and the other to help someone else talk through their nascent project. Are you energized at the end of a day like this?
🔋 If creativity energizes you, you love coming up with fresh ways to do things. Your mind automatically looks for new solutions; you don’t mean to discount practical ideas, but you are naturally drawn to original thinking and “outside the box” approaches. Maybe, like me, you love chasing the taste of creative freedom.
Who annoys you: People who conform too easily to the status quo or fail to look for innovative solutions, alternatives, and opportunities to improve products, services, processes, and outcomes.
Who is annoyed by you: Pragmatic and more cautious people (including common sense types!) who like well-proven, more obvious approaches and solutions. They might see your ideas as unworkable and even eccentric, taking little account of the realities of the organization, its context, and customer needs.
🥵 When in overdrive: You may generate “out there” ideas that come across more as unrealistic fantasy than practical solutions. You may overlook the smaller, more obvious, tried and tested routes that might be more effective.
Self-check by asking: My creativity energizer has me generating exciting new ideas all the time—I can’t help it! Do we need more fresh thinking here, or should we move forward with what works?
🪫 If creativity is a drainer for you: You may find having to do too much “brainstorming” exhausting. You might feel that you are being asked to generate novelty for novelty’s sake, when practical solutions are readily available.
Reframe it by reflecting: What contexts or collaborations spark my innovative thinking in ways that don’t drain me?
📊 Get to Know Your Significant Seven Energy-Strengths
If you found this helpful and want to dive deeper into the 24 energy-strengths, including an assessment that will show your biggest energizers and drainers:
Individuals: Purchase the Strengthscope report here and get instant access to your results and a 45-minute Upgrade Your Energy pre-recorded workshop to better understand your unique profile, with tips to find more flow at work.
Or book a 45-minute 1:1 with me that comes with a Strengthscope report; together we’ll talk through your results and develop a customized strategy based on your Significant Seven energy-strengths.
Teams: If you work within an organization and have the budget to run this as an in-person half-day team-building workshop, we are now booking for next quarter. Learn more and inquire here »
That’s it for now . . . thank you for reading and listening!
❤️ With Love,
P.S. If you are currently a paying subscriber: Your payments have been paused since December; consider it a mini-sabbatical for PivotList while I figure out what offerings that will include in 2025. Thank you for your patience!