Coffee & Career Hour
A genuine & informative podcast on all things career - hosted by two career counselors and friends. From practical strategies to motivational & reflective content, this podcast is here to empower and guide you to find meaningful work, make informed career decisions, and reach your full potential. So, grab a cup of coffee and join in for some career talk.
Coffee & Career Hour
Embracing Career Anxiety: The Evolution of You and Your Career
Join us for an engaging Coffee and Career Hour episode as we chat about career decision-making and the anxiety that comes with. We tackle common misconceptions about entering the workforce and discuss how career transitions can actually be gateways to self-discovery and growth. This episode is all about embracing the fluid nature of career decisions and the excitement that comes with change, even when it seems daunting.
Embracing change and uncertainty in your career can be a daunting yet rewarding journey. This episode discusses the significance of self-awareness, the evolving nature of interests, and the importance of advocating for oneself in pursuing career growth.
Our conversation also sheds light on the anxiety many feel when transitioning from school to work, emphasizing that it's normal to explore and redefine paths over time. Networking and career conversations are vital tools for bridging the gap between self-awareness and career options. We highlight how initial jobs, often seen as stepping stones, can build skills and align with personal values, leading to confidence and competencies in unexpected areas. Settle in for this cozy coffee chat as we set a welcoming tone and share insights, reminding listeners that the journey of career growth is full of possibilities and pivots.
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It's really a beautiful thing to see it as a career counselor, to also experience it on ourselves too. I mean, there is a whole philosophy in the career space around how to make career decisions and how these are like lifelong processes, Right? So you're talking about being self-aware and making decisions accordingly.
Speaker 1:As counselors, we always talk about the importance of like knowing your values, knowing your skills, knowing what you have to offer to the world, so that you can use that to make informed career decisions. You are listening to Coffee and Career Hour. We are your hosts. I'm Armina and I'm MJ, two career counselors and friends chatting about all things life and career.
Speaker 2:So grab a cup of coffee and join us.
Speaker 1:Hi everybody, welcome back to Coffee and Career Hour. Armine, how are you feeling today? How am I feeling?
Speaker 2:All sorts of emotions, but the most authentic would be tired yeah, no, I agree I'm not exhausted, which I've been exhausted the past couple weeks like deadly exhausted, but I do feel tired yeah, it's just been a lot. It's been a really busy time it's been a year and it's February 20th.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, in Instagram, when everybody was like I've tried my two week trial of 2025 and I'd like to unsubscribe. Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, every year and you guys know I'm not a new year, new me but this year I felt like really good because there's like different things happening this year to me that I'm excited for and it's like ruined itself. Yeah, but I'm still looking forward to the things.
Speaker 1:Months, like specific months or or just days, will be good yeah, at this point, yeah, and you know there's still a lot to be experienced this year, so we're hoping that things will improve and we'll, we'll, we'll have better days. Yeah, but we're here yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker 2:One thing that I think we're always constantly thinking about, if we're talking about the theme of like change and the unknown and how the year has been so unexpected, it's also a metaphor for your career in your life it totally is.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I'm having flashbacks of conversations I've had with clients and students about career decisions and like the ups and downs and highs and lows and the anxiety of making career decisions. Yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of uncertain. Every time I think about it, it's the uncertainty that kills me, because you don't know, like nothing's for sure, nothing's for sure in your career, nothing is really promised and at any point in time things can change.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, totally, totally. Because there are budget cuts, there are new laws, there are things that change your company. Um, so, even if you're working for, like a private company, right, like their, like their funding sources change their mission, may change their leadership, may change, which changes the whole like vision of the company. These kinds of things happen all the time in all sectors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think one of the most important things to note is you may change, and that's okay. You may change your ideas, your priorities, your goals in life, what you're passionate about. You may lose that taste and flavor for what you once felt was your true calling.
Speaker 1:That is so timely because I was actually listening to a podcast recently about actually, some of you may have heard Her name is Yoga Girl and she has a huge brand and a huge company that she's built since 2012 we're in 2025 right now and she has evolved so much and in this recent podcast episode she was talking about selling her company that she's built from ground up and how it's evolved and it's become this big, huge company that she feels like she no longer has that drive for entrepreneurship that she used to have and she's ready to sell and she's having all sorts of feelings around this because this is her baby and she grew it and it's tied to her identity. But at the same time, she wants to now transition to a different part where her maybe her focus is or her values have shifted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I get so scared about like waking up one day and being like I don't feel like myself and I don't feel like this is me anymore and that shift and change. And I think it just goes to speak how you don't know what life you're living in the sense of like this can be your first career life, your second career life, you can enter a new phase in in your, in your life that can really just change your perspective and the way you think and feel and approach different career situations totally.
Speaker 1:I mean it can be scary. It could also be exciting to know that there's like a lot of unknown and new possibilities that can come up and 10 years later you may be doing something totally different that you never imagined. So it could also be exciting, but also the unknown is always scary.
Speaker 2:Well, the unknown kills me, Like I hate not having a plan or not knowing if things are going to work out that way. So for me it's just and I know a lot of people out there feel that way too especially when you're job searching or you're moving into a new phase or you're having a huge transition in your life too, that unknown and uncertainty can really just do a lot to you. But there's a lot of good pieces that can come to that too. Yeah, you can rediscover yourself, your passions, your interests, who you really are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can totally rediscover. You also evolve as a human being with every new experience, right? I mean we tell our clients this all the time, especially the age group who's like right about to transition out of college into the world of work and is feeling like they don't know what they want to do. But they're approaching this like big, scary new life circumstance. Right, and we tell them all the time. You don't have to have all the answers now, because you may be in a completely different place in your life five years later. Your values may shift, your lifestyle may look completely different. So it's okay that you don't have it figured out and that you can try something now and see where that takes you. And whatever new skills, whatever new lessons you learn through this experience can propel you forward to the next step. A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:It is really exciting to see people go through that transition and have that eagerness to want to take those risks and want to go out there and be themselves or just have that vulnerability to truly identify like who they are, and have that self-awareness to understand what they want and go out and seek that yeah, no, it's really a beautiful thing to see it as a career counselor, to also experience it on ourselves too.
Speaker 1:I mean, there is a whole philosophy in the career space around how to make career decisions and how these are like lifelong processes, right? So you're talking about like being self-aware? And making decisions accordingly. As counselors, we always talk about the importance of like knowing your values, knowing your skills, knowing what you have to offer to the world, so that you can use that to make informed career decisions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, something that a lot of people don't, I don't think, see immediately is one of the things that helps you really understand who you are and where you kind of belong in the workplace is your strengths and your personality, and a lot of people dread the like strengths and weaknesses question in an interview, but those really do help you better understand yourself and where you want to grow and how you're growing and what you're great at and where you may need some extra training or advising or coaching to fill those gaps where you're not necessarily weak but they're just gaps, that you have to grow and be just a better version of yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know what kind of makes me chuckle all the time is. Sometimes people will say like, oh, you know, I'm a different person professionally. And then in my personal life I'm a different person. And the more I've been I mean, I've been a career counselor for about 10 years now and the more I'm doing this work, the more that statement makes me laugh, because it's so intertwined, like who you are as a person outside of work comes into the workplace. There is no separating your professional self and your personal self. You're laughing.
Speaker 2:I'm laughing because it's so true. It's so true for me. I end up career counseling people at parties and like random people's houses, kitchens.
Speaker 2:Like yes, I can never get away from it, not like that. I go out and seek people who are looking to create this huge change or that need help, but it just follows me and it's my. It's just who I am and my personality and my want to serve and to help people who need support or want to make a change. And I'm laughing because I'm thinking about the last time I went to a party and a career, counseling three people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. I was telling you before this episode, my very first quote, unquote client for a career rise was a friend at a bar. I reviewed her personal statement for graduate school. So it is something about the brand that you create for yourself and what you offer to the world, right, the skills that you have and and that you carry with you wherever you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a piece of you developing within your own career and it comes. It doesn't come until you, uniquely and I think, come to your own conclusion of who you are, because you have to remember that you define what that looks like in your career. It's how you want everyone around you to perceive you, right. What do you want them to know you by? It's how people speak of you when you're not there. What they remember about the way you presented them to know you by. It's how people speak of you when you're not there. What they remember about the way you presented, the way you approached a problem and the way you solved it, how you led a meeting or brought a team together to execute a project.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no. And and those skills of, let's say, you know you're talking about leading a meeting or executing a project, those skills you would also be using in different aspects in your personal life.
Speaker 1:So if you're seeing that maybe your family and friends come to you for something all the time.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're the organized one, maybe you're the one who's able to get everybody together to actually get something done.
Speaker 1:Maybe you're the planner or you're the spontaneous one and you're like the one that's comfortable speaking up for everybody. Whatever it is, if you're doing these things in your natural habitat, those are actually skills you can pay attention to, because those are going to come into the workplace as well, and I can almost guarantee your colleagues are going to start knowing you by that brand, like oh, mj is the one who can execute, mj is great one who can execute. Mj is great with logistics or so, and so is great with this right. So everybody around you is going to see that, no matter what space you're in. So maybe for our listeners, if you're not sure what skills you bring to the table, or you know how people know you, maybe you could start by asking your family and friends yeah, you know what are skills they see in you and then use that to help you prepare for those interview answers like what are your strengths? Because that's going to come across in the workplace as well merchandise I'm so in.
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Speaker 2:Now let's get back to our show. Yeah, I will say too you're never too old to learn new skills. You're never too old in your career. I don't mean like literal age, I mean like time in your career you, professional development does come into play because you can develop those additional skills where you may like, quote, unquote lack certain abilities and things like that. And it's an important thing to to do because you want to remain curious, you want to continue to learn and grow, and that's how you evolve over time in your career and you change positions or you move up in a certain way.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely that being open to the growth and understanding that evolving is essential is so important because I think for some reason in society we have this idea that after you are done with school, whatever level of schooling it is, it doesn't matter. After you're done with school, you get into the world of work and you have it all figured out. You know that's a lie, that's a scam.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whoever said that is not?
Speaker 1:But we in society we have this idea. That's why we get so many clients who are so anxious, who are just at the tip of this transition from school to the workforce and just at the tip of this transition from school to the workforce and they have are experiencing the most amount of anxiety because they feel like they should have it figured out and they don't and they think they're behind and they're, they think they're doing something wrong and they think everybody else has it all figured out and they're a failure and it's like the biggest scam because nobody has it figured out. Even people in their career for 10 years don't have it figured out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm saying it's a scam. And then I'm remembering little MJ, when she was an undergrad, and I remember my family, and particularly like my mom telling me like you're going to go to college, you're going to get a degree and it's going to be fine. And then when I went to college, got the degree, and I was like so I'm waiting for things to be fine. Yeah, and they're not. So now, with five years of experience in the field and being a counselor and seeing a variety of different students who have like, for example, I used to work with nursing students a long time ago who had their like path right quote, unquote set out for them, and now we work with a variety of different students and clients who are entering the unknown and can explore anywhere out.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of differences that you kind of see, um, and the uncertainty is still there yeah and it is really okay for you to not know when you're deciding where you're going, with or without whatever type of degree, because even I've seen grad people with graduate degrees who are graduating and still have that same sense of I don't know what to do next. I don't know what step to take, I don't know who to talk to, I don't know what to look for, I don't know who I am and I don't know what I want to do. And that is okay, like we get that you're in survival mode in that moment and you need a job to you know, financially, be okay or whatever the circumstances are. But it is okay for you to continue exploring and figuring out who you are and what your interests are and what type of environments you like and what you don't like. That's equally as important to knowing what type of education you have as well yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And that is exactly where, like this philosophy of the career, how people make career decisions comes into play.
Speaker 1:Right, because, yes, you may be in survival mode, yes, you may need to just get a job to meet your basic needs, but then utilizing that job to help you go back to those roots of like, what are my values, what do I want to contribute to society? And then utilize that job. You have to build the skills you need or bridge into the career path you want to get into right. So it's still a time and space for you to reflect and figure out those important pieces of your identity and then understand what's out there in the world of work. Right, that's. The next step is like, let's say you're, you have some clarity about yourself. What do you do next? The next piece is network. You talk to people, you have career conversations, you research what types of occupations are out there, and then you bridge that gap and you put what you know about yourself and what you know about the options available to you and hopefully find one that's an ideal match.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and reminder here, like just a little note just because you entered something doesn't mean you have to continue in that field or in that specific career path. Just because you became a legal assistant doesn't mean you have to become a paralegal and then an attorney and then practice. Just because you work in the health care field as an administrative assistant doesn't mean you have to go on and do something in healthcare you really like. The world is your oyster, I think, is what they is what the quote says I'm too young to know what the hell the quote is.
Speaker 2:But anyway, the world is really your oyster for you to go and choose to be whatever type of pearl you want to be, yeah, and whatever type of field, whatever type of industry, whatever it is that you want to do. It may not feel right now like you have those options and you can, and it may sound like a far reach, but it's because it's not your time right now. You're, if you're feeling, very in survival mode, like we were saying, maybe you just need a job. But there will be. There will come a time where you have the ability to explore, um figure out who you are, and you can always have opportunities to do that as well.
Speaker 1:Of course, and as you're exploring and figuring these things out, you're also building skills, right? So, like, let's say, you're in that job and you're like, I don't want this to be my forever career, right, but that job can be a place where you develop skills and identify what gaps you have, right, and utilize that space to ask for additional, different projects, or utilize that space to get whatever skill sets you need to get, right, I know, maybe you may. I'm thinking of our particular positions. Maybe somebody may want to get more experience working with data, because data is really important in many different industries, right? Or you want to get some managerial experience, or whatever it may be.
Speaker 1:A lot of people may think like, okay, I'm not confident in public speaking, right, I want to develop those skills. Is there a space in the work that you're doing today where you can practice and try out different projects? Most, most companies, most supervisors and and bosses will be accommodating and allowing you to try and dip your feet in different projects. If you take the initiative to ask, they, more often than not, are going to be willing to allow you that space, as long as it doesn't take away from the work that you need to be doing for.
Speaker 2:For your position. You know 100. I think advocating for yourself in the workspace and you know, sharing that you want to grow in a certain way is is 100 okay and it's it's what you should be doing right, like staying stagnant. I was just talking about this yesterday with with someone about in your career. Staying stagnant doesn't mean like you've reached the top and that's it, like you do the same job forever. You can always continue to grow, but it really does like balls in your court. You have to advocate for that, or you have to speak up about it and ask for those different skill sets too, because how else are you going to grow?
Speaker 1:exactly it's. It's. It's a skill in and of itself to advocate for yourself.
Speaker 2:It is, and I say that like big and proud now, but like I've worked up the nerve to become this way as well, because you won't get anywhere if you're not your, if you are not your own advocator. You can't get to the places you want to be if you're not the person you know making those moves and opportunities for yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, fun fact, their employers are surveyed every so often. There's an organization called the National Association of Colleges and Employers and they survey employers to see what skills they're looking for. There's a set of eight skills that employers are looking for in today's job market, and the first, the number one, is career and self-development, and what that entails is awareness of your strengths, awareness of your goals, ability to advocate for yourself, ability to reflect on what you have to offer, reflect on what you want to develop and speak up about that, like those, that is the number one skill that employers are seeking in today's job market yeah, it's, it is really mind-blowing to well, in a good way it's.
Speaker 2:It's mind-blowing in the sense of like people want, people who are eager to continue learning and growing and becoming better versions of themselves, either for the good of the workplace or for the better of just the human being and the work that they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you know everybody wants to work with somebody who's driven, somebody who's self-aware, somebody who is excited. You bring that kind of energy to any workplace. It's going to be valued. So, keeping that in mind as you're, you know, making this next decision about your career, it's going to be valued. So, keeping that in mind as you're making this next decision about your career, whether it's finding a job just to meet your basic needs, whether it's pivoting in your career that you've been in for a few years, whether you're a student still figuring out your major, regardless these pieces, we're going to go through them, all of us, multiple times in our lifetime. As we advance, maybe we go from one position to the next. We start this process again, re-evaluating Okay, where am I now? What's important, what are my values now? And then, moving forward from there, what are my options? Moving beyond, Do I want to stay in the same company, the same industry, and so forth? And going around that process again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a cycle and it's going to continue for the rest of your life. And no, this is not your last career or your last job. And yes, there may be other opportunities out there, but I guess the question is, how badly do you want them and do you know yourself that well to want to make those moves? But sometimes these conversations can be really difficult to have on your own, but that's why you have a community within Career Rise and Career Confident Latina to really explore who you are and find the best version of yourself and rebuild what that looks like, or just strengthen what that looks like as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're happy to have these conversations with you. You can send us a message on our Instagrams. You can find us on our websites and reach out, and we'd be happy to answer any questions as well. Yeah, see you on there. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy our show, we ask that you write a review on Apple Podcasts to help us reach more people looking to level up their career.
Speaker 2:Want to connect with us, be sure to follow our Instagram and websites.
Speaker 1:Follow Career Rise on Instagram for career advice and motivation to help you stay up to date on all things career. Be sure to also visit my website, careerriseorg, to book a session with me and access free resources. My goal is to help you clarify your goals, make a plan and feel confident in your career journey.
Speaker 2:Follow Career Confident Latina for your weekly dose of career advice and my journey as a first-gen Latina counselor. You can also send me a message on mjcareerconfidencecom if you want to book a career counseling session. I want to help grow your confidence as you reach your career dreams.
Speaker 1:Hi everybody, Welcome back to Coffee and Career Hour.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited We've had our cup of coffee, so now I'm ready to chat.
Speaker 1:Yes, we actually did have coffee today. Sometimes we don't, but today we had nice coffee with oat milk, cinnamon and sugar.
Speaker 2:It's a very like fall, but anytime I'm with you it does feel like fall. Yeah, you're very fall. Thank you, of course.
Speaker 1:We're so silly, okay, well, we are excited today to talk to you all about career development and life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we say we're excited all the time, which is not false, but this time it's even more true than the other times.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, we have to redo that, it's even more true.
Speaker 2:It is. It is more true. Should I stop it? Sure, sorry.