We face different kinds of uncertainty every day. It is an illusion that till something doesn’t bother us personally, it can’t affect our career goals. Global or country level uncertainty is something that seems to be far away and in everyday life we mostly deal with a different kind of uncertainty never even considering that unprecedented external circumstances can significantly shift our perspective of how your career could be developing.
Setting long lasting career goals and moving forward with them suddenly became something what’s not guaranteed for me in 2022 because of the current geopolitical events in my country. Before applying for the Atlas Corps Fellowship I was volunteering abroad, working in nonprofit organizations and contributing my skills and knowledge to the development of social entrepreneurship in Russia. Aside from that, I was developing my project for youth during the Virtual Leadership Institute and making big plans on scaling it up. I knew exactly what challenges young people face here and was very passionate to find solutions for them. The social sector in Russia overall was pretty vulnerable and I would say just has bloomed recently. As a confirmation of that we could find more and more corporates becoming socially responsible, companies getting involved in the ESG agenda, big foundations creating the whole ecosystem of different projects, more citizens being ready to get involved in the sector and launching their impactful projects.
Though in February 2022 when current geopolitical events started taking place in my region and the new strict policies significantly changed the social sector landscape I realised the level of uncertainty in terms of my career plans reached its peak. That moment I couldn’t continue working on my youth project at full capacity, the organization I was working at was at risk of losing funding and international opportunities seemed unrealistic. I was in complete turmoil.
This is an important part of my story to illustrate the level of uncertainty that I experienced but let’s focus on how in any kind of situation you can get back on track and pursue your career goals. At that point I was at the semi-finalist stage but the Fellowship opportunity seemed unlikely to happen, also given the Embassy in Russia hadn’t been operating for a while. In August the fully remote opportunity with Generation was introduced and I confirmed my interest. Generation is a nonprofit that transforms education to employment systems to prepare, place, and support people into life-changing careers that would be otherwise be inaccessible. I remember how I was so thrilled when I had my first interview with the host organization. After 3 interviews and a performance task I found out I was selected. This was such great news! Then we had our orientation, the Global Leadership Lab Immersion week, and I started my work at Generation. So far it has been an incredible experience and I am endlessly grateful for this opportunity.
I acknowledged that uncertainty is permanent and what really defines a true leader is the ability to successfully navigate it. At the moment or turmoil it’s very important to check in with your values, aspirations and know your why, what social issues you are passionate about and what’s important for you to work on, no matter how everything around you may change. Having this as a starting point will always help you deal with upcoming challenges.
Here are some strategies that helped me navigate uncertainty and keep moving forward with my career goals:
1. Define what you control
When you get overwhelmed, try to assess what you personally can control and what is something completely out of your control. Don’t let what’s out of your control take over you. You can definitely control work you do, connections you support, take good care of your mental health but you can’t control currency rates or political situation.
2. Do scenario planning instead of forecasts
Give up forecasts for scenario planning. Write your “if …, then…” scenarios so you know how to act when the certain situation occurs. It will be easier for you to stay calm and rely on solutions you came up with. Think about crisis as an opportunity to grow as a leader. Uncertain times give you a chance to try something you were afraid to do or thought you wouldn’t manage. Use it to your advantage.
3. Apply resilience strategies
Come up with 4s resilience plan. I learnt that during the VLI and since then it has been very helpful to me. 4s stands for – supportive people (think of who and how can support you or give you advice), strategies (what strategies can you use to deal with difficult thoughts or what can help you stay focused), sagacity (what do you remind yourself to help you stay motivated and keep going), solution-seeking behaviours (what concrete actions or behaviours helped you to move forward and find a solution).
4. Create no regret moves
This one is a great strategy. When you can’t take a decision or right now it’s not possible due to constantly changing circumstances, create no regret moves. For example, take a course to develop new skills, attend networking events, keep learning languages. The main point is that doesn’t matter what happens next, when we know more, we feel more confident and it increases our ability to meet challenges creatively and proactively.
5. Focus on your strengths
Good self-awareness is important for any leader and recognizing your strengths in uncertain times will serve you well. Recognizing what makes you a great professional and helps you lead even when you are tired, upset or anxious is crucial, because precisely in this situation we tend to be going down to our “basic settings” and take irrational decisions.
6. Engage your professional network
Your network can be a great source of new perspectives and ideas to help you in your current situation. Helping each other with challenges, experiences and goals allows you to get new insights that you may not have otherwise thought of.
In times of uncertainty try change old hypothesis to create new ones. It doesn’t mean you have to drop doing what you doing; it means you can change the approach to developing your project or to how you planned to fulfill your career aspirations. Design new experiments or improve old experiments and see if those work.
Right now, I have a better perspective on what I am going to do after the Fellowship. I know I am definitely going to continue working on social issues I am passionate about – youth entrepreneurship/employability and community development. Talent is shared, opportunity should be too. Atlas Corps gave me so much more than just an opportunity. Since my participation in the VLI, I got lots of tools for developing my own project, a great network and the community that has been incredibly helpful. And now, as a Fellow, I am working in a great team of dedicated professionals across the continents at Generation developing new perspectives on global issues and learning new effective practices in project management.
To sum up, in uncertain times or when you have to start everything from scratch acknowledge that there will always be things out of your control and only challenges will change. Develop self-awareness, take good care of yourself and use the strategies that work best for you. Stick to your values, remember your why and keep moving forward in your leadership journey.
Photo credit: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
About the author: Anastasia Zelenova is an Atlas Corps Fellow serving at Generation as a Global Employer Engagement Fellow.
