How to Navigate Career Uncertainty with a Growth Mindset

Friend, let's be real for a minute.

That feeling of not quite knowing what the future holds in your career? We've all been there. Maybe you're there right now.

Currently a lot of us are navigating some seriously unpredictable waters in the job market and the economy. Trust me, I get how scary it can feel.

But here's the thing I've learned from working with so many people in career transition (and from my own personal experience—because I’ve definitely been there): these moments, as uncomfortable as they can be, are also ripe with potential. They can be the push we need to learn, to adapt, and to ultimately step into a more resilient and fulfilling future.

What if this moment of uncertainty could actually be the launchpad for something amazing in your life? It all boils down to how we choose to approach it, and that's where the power of a growth mindset comes in.

Charting Your Course: Intention in Uncertain Times

Right now, a lot of people are trying to figure out what’s next. Maybe they’ve experienced a job loss or they know that job cuts are on the horizon. Maybe they’re just trying to figure out how to navigate the rollercoaster of the current economy. Maybe they’re simply planning for the future.

That last one was me a few months ago.

For the past year, I’ve been thinking about what more I can do and what I should do differently. I’ll be totally honest, up to this point, my career has been about half meticulously planned and half figuring it out on the fly.

So when I was thinking about where I wanted to go next, I knew that I wanted to be super intentional. Should I get a new certification? Should I start my master’s in organizational development?  But I realized the big question was really:

What do I want the next 10 years of my career to look like?

If you're grappling with similar questions, here's the process I found helpful:

• Ask Deeply Reflective Questions: Give yourself the time and space to ponder what truly matters to you professionally. What aspects of your current or past roles have you enjoyed? What kind of work makes you feel energized and purposeful? What are your non-negotiables moving forward?

• Visualize Potential Futures: Imagine different career paths or roles. How do they feel? What would a typical day look like? Don't just think logically; tap into your intuition. If something feels misaligned, even if it seems like the "right" move on paper, pay attention to that feeling.

• Do Your Research: Talk to people who are working in fields or roles that intrigue you. Their real-world experiences can provide invaluable insights and help you refine your vision. When I was considering my next steps, conversations with professionals in different areas of learning and development helped me narrow my focus and identify the most productive path for me. That advice can also help you get clear on what’s worth your time, money, and energy as you move forward.

• Follow Your Energy: If the next “most logical” step forward feels overwhelming or tedious, don’t try to stuff down those emotions. They’re trying to tell you something, and that resistance might be a signal that the “most logical” step might not be the best one for you. What’s meant for you will light you up, which is what will help you see it through, even when you hit challenges.

• Control What You Control: If you’re trying to figure out what’s next in your career, start with controlling what’s within your control. The biggest thing you can control is your own personal and professional development. Explore opportunities that align with your passion, not just your current role, and stay open to learning something new about who you are, what you want, and where you want to go next.

Taking Action: Building Your Toolkit for Growth

Once you have a clearer sense of direction, the next step is to proactively build the skills and connections that will help you get there. Here are some key strategies:

1. Get Your Mind Right: It all starts here. Your mindset will shape how you navigate every challenge and opportunity. Recognize that uncertainty can be uncomfortable, but you don’t have to get stuck in that feeling. Embrace the potential for learning and growth. Remember, a growth mindset sees obstacles as stepping stones, not roadblocks.

2. Tap into Your Human Network: If your first instinct is just to start applying online to every single position that fits your skill set, take a pause. Don't underestimate the power of connection. Reach out to your existing network—former colleagues, mentors, friends—and let them know you’re exploring. Tapping into your network means connecting with other humans, and that helps you move from being one of 1000 applications and a list of skills to being a real person who the hiring manager can envision being part of their team. Networking can open doors you hadn't even considered and provide invaluable support and insights.

3. Leverage the Power of AI: In today's world, artificial intelligence can be a powerful ally in your career journey. Leveraging AI can help you in a couple of ways. First, it can remind you of pertinent experience that you might not have listed on your resume. Second, using AI helps you get into the mind of the recruiter or the hiring manager. Tools like Chat GPT can flag up the most important aspects of the job description, which gives you a chance to think of examples, stories, and data points that you can highlight in your cover letter or share in an interview.

Here's three ways you can use AI to help you prep for the job market (and three prompts you can use to get what you need!)

• Analyze Job Descriptions: Use tools like ChatGPT to break down job descriptions and identify key skills and requirements.

  
  

⌨️ Try this prompt: "Analyze the following job description and create a bullet list of action verbs and keywords that appear frequently and seem most important for this role to help me tailor my resume language. Also, identify any quantifiable achievements or metrics mentioned or implied in the description. Here is the job description: [paste the job description here]"⌨️

• Tailor Your Resume: Ask AI to compare your resume to specific job descriptions and highlight areas of alignment and potential gaps.

  
  

⌨️ Try this prompt: "Based on the following job description and my resume, identify 3–5 of the most critical responsibilities or qualifications mentioned in the job description. For each of these critical points, indicate whether my resume demonstrates direct experience, related experience, or no clear experience. Present your findings in a table format with the columns: 'Job Description Point,' 'Resume Alignment (Direct/Related/None),' and 'Notes/Examples from Resume (if applicable).’ Here is the job description: [paste the job description here] Here is my resume: [paste your resume here]" ⌨️

• Prepare for Interviews: Utilize AI to generate potential interview questions based on the job description and company information, allowing you to practice your responses.

⌨️ Try this prompt: "You are the hiring manager for a position at your company. Based on the job description and a brief description of the company, generate a list of 10 to 15 interview questions that you would ask to evaluate a candidate for this role. Include both behavioral questions (exploring how the candidate’s past experiences and soft skills align with the requirements and the company’s values) and technical questions (to assess the candidate’s technical proficiency and problem-solving abilities based on the requirements of the position). Here is the job description: [paste the job description here]. Here is some information about the company: [give some key facts and details about the company]”⌨️

Forging Your Own Path: The Freelance or Consulting Option 

Because of my own experience as an entrepreneur, I get a lot of questions about how people can transition into freelance or consulting work. It can feel scary, because there’s so much you don’t know and can’t control. But if you’re in a position where this feels like the next right step, it can be absolutely life changing.

If you're considering striking out on your own, remember these key principles:

1. Start with Your Strengths and Network: When I first started my journey into entrepreneurship, I'd been working as a recruiter, and that was my area of expertise. So I reached out to hiring managers who I knew used external placement firms, and I positioned myself as a partner for them. That's how I started to generate revenue. I used the skills that I already had and the people I already knew. 

Even if you want to build something completely new or go in a totally different direction, just get started leveraging what you already know. If you don't have an income stream, it's going to distract you and keep you from doing the work you actually want to do. Once you're generating income, you can start to incrementally pivot the business in the direction you want it to go. 

It's not always a direct path from where you are now to where you want to be, but that’s okay, because you’ll be continuing to learn and grow along the way. 

2. Work in 90-Day Sprints: There's a lot you're going to think you need to do, and a lot you're going to want to do, and it's going to feel like too much and become daunting. You’ll think you have to have a website, marketing materials, an elevator pitch, a business plan, all on Day 1. 

I promise, you don't have to have all of that to move forward. Eventually you'll build everything you need, but don't let that keep you from starting. If you're trying to do everything at the beginning, the effort and quality of what you produce is going to be diluted. Break down your goals into 90-day sprints so that you can just stay focused.

3. Give Yourself Time: Everyone's financial situation is different, but when I first lost my job, my first thought was, "I have enough money to cover our bills for the next three months. That means I have three months to build something that has the potential to generate income." I had to have faith that I could work and stay focused for 90 days and something would come of it.

Even if that something is just a breadcrumb, if it's a breadcrumb that leads you in the right direction, take it and make it last. Sometimes that means you're going to have to get a side job to pay the bills while you're building. But if you give yourself that timeframe to work, and really go all in, it is going to bear fruit, and that will let you know whether you're headed in the right direction.

The Universal Journey: Growth in Every Season

I recognize that this community is a mix of people who are already entrepreneurs, people who are leaders in the workplace, people who are stable in their jobs, people who feel unstable or insecure in their current positions, but what we all have in common is that we want to do good work. We want to do meaningful work. And we'd like for our work, in some way, to align with our personal passions. 

Just know that it's a journey for all of us. It doesn't matter what industry you're in or what level you work at. It doesn't matter if you want to do passionate work within an organization or you want to pursue your passion on your own. The reality is that we all go through peaks and valleys in our careers. 

I have certainly felt that as a business owner. I've been in business for 10 years. The first 5 were trying to build the foundation. It was super messy. The next 5, I experienced a tremendous amount of success, and I could see all of the seeds I planted starting to bear fruit. But even in those 5 years of success, there were rollercoasters and loop-de-loops I had to ride out. 

So let’s normalize the fact that, even though this is an egregiously uncertain time, it's still just the cycle of life. So don't get too low looking out and seeing how tumultuous it is right now. One way you can build your resilience and stay grounded is by finding ways to squeeze the joy out of everyday moments.

Develop Resilience by Finding Joy in the Ordinary

When we’re navigating a landscape that feels like it’s constantly shifting beneath our feet, we have to lean into a mindset that allows us to acknowledge the discomfort, then tune out the noise so that we can get clear about the path forward.

That’s what it looks like to cultivate resilience.

This ability to not just withstand challenges but to find strength and even moments of light within the hard times is crucial for developing a growth mindset. Resilience isn’t just a personality trait that some people are born with. It’s something we actively build and cultivate. 

One way you can nurture your resilience is by developing your own personal anchors—finding things that bring you joy and calm so that you can tap into those feelings and remind ourselves of all the good that still exists, even when the big picture feels uncertain.

For me, one of those anchors is cooking dinner. My son and I are getting settled into a new home, and let me tell you, cooking in our kitchen feels pretty amazing.  

Honestly, most of the time I’m just cooking for my son and me. I’m making simple meals. The whole experience is so ordinary, but that hour is the highlight of my day. Whatever’s happened, whatever is happening, outside my kitchen, when I step into that space, I anchor myself to the small joys that come with this daily ritual.

🍲I love being able to spread out and not have to move stuff around every couple of minutes like I did in our old kitchen.

🍲I love just soaking up the delicious smells of everything I’m making.

🍲I love when I’m cooking up something yummy and my son says, “Man, Mom, that smells so good.”

🍲I love sitting down and connecting with him while we share a meal.

🍲I love cleaning up afterward and seeing the space fresh and clean again.

It’s something I do every single day, and it would be easy to rely on muscle memory and let it pass me by. Instead, I make sure that I notice the details. I sink into them and let them reset my energy. I count on that moment to bring me back to center each day, and I squeeze the joy out of it. 

Everyday Ways to Flex the Six Pillars of Resilience

When we intentionally focus on those anchor moments, they become a daily reminder of the good and certainty and joy that still exist, even if the rest of our lives feel uncertain. In fact, if you look at the research on developing a growth mindset, you can see how something as simple as squeezing the joy out of cooking dinner helps flex and strengthen the six domains of resilience:

🧠Vision: When I’m cooking dinner, I’m focused on a single clear, achievable goal: putting together a meal for my son and I.

🧠Composure: When I’m cooking dinner, my stress levels drop, and I feel in control.

🧠Reasoning: When I’m cooking dinner, I’m confident that even if something goes “wrong,” I can figure out a creative solution.

🧠Tenacity: If I hit a snag, I can push through and still make something we’ll enjoy, even if it’s not perfect. 

🧠Collaboration: Sitting down to dinner is a time for me to connect with my son.

🧠Health: No matter how simple, the food I cook nourishes my body.

Cultivating this awareness of the small joys is a fundamental aspect of building resilience, a cornerstone of a growth mindset.

A Growth Mindset Activity: Reframing Challenges Through Language

This ability to find joy, even in the ordinary, is closely linked to how we perceive and describe our experiences. Research shows that the language we use, both internally and externally, has a profound impact on our mindset. This is a key growth mindset activity: consciously choosing our words.

I’ll give you another quick example from my own life to show you what I mean:

During the winter months, it’s hard for me to get out and be active.

I can’t be outside playing 🎾pickleball🎾, which is what I love to do, and I’m just not motivated to go to the gym. I’d much rather be doing something playful than working out inside. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, right?

But I’ve been coming out of hibernation over the last month and getting back into the routine of going to the gym. I know that working out this way isn’t my favorite, but that doesn’t change the fact that I also know it’s good for my body and mind.

I can’t change the environment, so I’m changing the words I use to describe what I’m doing. When I’m at the gym, I’m talking to myself constantly.

💪Man, I’m so grateful I can walk these 20 minutes!

💪Oh my gosh, my body is so strong!

💪Hoo, getting my heart rate up feels so good!

I’m using words to squeeze joy out of something I could easily just mentally complain about. And by the time I leave, I feel so much better about it! Instead of leaving grumpy and irritated at the time I spent at the gym, I leave feeling really good about my workout.

This simple shift in language is a powerful tool in developing a growth mindset and coping with uncertainty by focusing on what I can control: my perspective. And if you can learn to describe something small and mildly irritating in a positive way, it will build your mental strength so that you have the power to reframe big challenges and setbacks.

Try This Growth Mindset Activity: 

💡Think of a routine activity that usually makes you grumble. Maybe it’s grocery shopping or writing invoices or loading the dishwasher. 

💡The next time you find yourself mentally complaining, take 30 seconds to find positive language to describe what you’re doing. It might feel forced or sound silly, but neuroscience shows that your brain will respond, even if you’re just faking it!

✅ Letting our mental monologue get bogged down with negative language disrupts our brain’s production of feel-good neurotransmitters; overriding that negative talk with positive language activates our frontal lobe, which helps guide emotional regulation, problem-solving, and impulse control. 

✅ It turns out that every time you complete a task you really don’t want to do, it activates the part of your brain responsible for willpower and self-control, which strengthens your resilience!

Embracing the Opportunity: Your Growth Mindset Advantage

Ultimately, navigating career and economic uncertainty isn't just about weathering a storm; it's about using the experience to learn, adapt, and emerge stronger. You will learn new skills during this time, whether that’s mastering an AI tool, earning a new certification, or learning the nuances of a new company culture.

Every step of this journey, though, will require a growth mindset. When you believe in your capacity to learn, and you look for opportunities to challenge yourself and evolve, you will be better equipped to find a productive path forward. 

By focusing on finding joy in the present, intentionally shaping your future vision, and actively building your skills and network, you can not only ride the wave of uncertainty but also use it as a powerful catalyst for meaningful growth in your career and beyond.

Stay curious, stay engaged, and remember that you have the capacity to not just face the future, but to shape it.