This month, we’re celebrating our founder’s birthday, and she loves a good cupcake. Have you ever tried baking cupcakes from scratch? Seems kind of daunting. But you’ve likely used boxed cake, cookie, or brownie mixes before – or at least watched someone else bake in person or on TV. So, you have a general idea of what goes into it: combining wet and dry ingredients, cooking, cooling, frosting, and decorating. When you break it down and look back at your foundation of knowledge, nothing is quite as scary as it seems. And we mean this for everything.
Whether you’re switching roles within your company or looking for a brand-new job (for those new grads out there), you’re never starting from the bottom (sorry, Drake!)
Mistake or learning moment?
When you’re trying something new, you’re bound to make a mistake or two…or twelve. And that’s okay –sometimes the coolest things come out of making mistakes. Like Post-It Notes! (Fun fact: Dr. Cindy writes her books on Post-Its!) We like to think of “mistakes” rebranded as “opportunities”. Put your hand on a hot stove once, and you’re definitely not going to do that again. Mistakes teach us valuable lessons that help us improve our future selves. They make us more resilient. They’re opportunities to learn and grow, strengthening our knowledge and know-how. When you learn from a mistake, you’re just adding to your experience.
If you’re starting a new project or starting a new career, you’ve certainly built up a bank of transferrable skills to help you succeed, even if it’s something you’ve never done before. Bringing back the handy Venn Diagram, what are some overlapping traits from previous situations that can help in a new endeavor? Even if they seem the opposite, all of your experience is helpful when trying something new. For example, if you previously worked in a retail customer service role but are now taking on a project management role in a different industry, your communication skills are highly transferrable. What was once talking to customers is now the ability to communicate clearly and effectively with team members and clients. Not to mention active listening and staying calm in stressful situations. It all adds up.
Transferrable Skills
Here are some more transferrable skills you can use as you enter a new phase of your career (and life!)
- Leadership: whether you’ve managed a team or stepped up to the plate for a new project or responsibility, you’ve shown follow-through and accountability.
- Problem Solving: noticing a problem and determining actionable solutions is highly valuable. You’re saving time and money and improving the process.
- Adaptability: being able to calmly pivot by taking on another role or adjusting timelines and deadlines is necessary in our fast-paced world.
- Relationship Building: in every single role, you will have to work with others. Building strong relationships in your department and with clients makes a successful work environment where everyone can effectively do their job.
Embrace the Experience
It’s graduation season, and we all have friends or family about to walk across the stage. Do you remember when you graduated? Full of excitement about the real world you’re about to step into. Excitement? Sorry, meant to say fear! We all thought we weren’t prepared and didn’t know enough. When recent grads are applying for jobs, they often feel like they don’t have enough experience and shy away from opportunities they could ultimately be very successful in. In reality, their education IS their experience. As a college student, you just spent 2-4 years or more fully immersed in a program, learning the most up-to-date information for that field.
Furthermore, you’ve likely had internships that provided great real-world experience. Even if your only job was at an ice cream shop, you now have customer service, cash handling, and upselling experience. You can easily start a successful career in sales! (And we can help here!)
We’re not saying facing anything new is easy. But when you’re able to unlock your confidence and shift your mindset, you can choose to see how much you actually know and what you are bringing to this new phase of life. You’re building on top of a foundation of experience from all aspects of your life. When you look back at what you learned from past roles and experiences (and yes, even mistakes), as well as reframe your transferrable skills, you can embrace a new challenge with grace, certainty, and optimism. Still, feeling like you need help or inspiration? Give us a shout here to get some Sticky Notes on the whiteboard and piece together all the experience you already have.
Grow Big or Go Home!®