The expression or idiom “to hang up (one’s) hat” means to retire or cease working or performing some task or duty that one has done for a long time. When it comes to your career, if you don’t have days where you desire a change or more, then you are a master of complacency. There is a vast difference between being content in your circumstances, knowing that situations change, and being self-satisfied and not prepared for when they inevitably will. After all, the saying “all good things come to an end” (in Spanish, “aún así, todas las cosas buenas debe llegar a su fin,” and a popular saying repeated in most languages) means nothing great will last forever. Per the dictionary, this idiom is often used as a proverb and is a wise reminder that all good things are temporary. It can be used as a term of regret, warning, or resigned acceptance.
Career Preparation Means No Regrets
When it comes to your career, as you advance with time, the ideal situation is to have no regrets and be prepared with skill sets (hard and soft) and emotionally when things out of your control happen. We all experienced the unknowns of the pandemic, and if you are midway through or more in your career, then you know what a real recession feels like in construction, having lived through it in the mid-2000s. For others, you could have experienced a company buyout, closure, change in executive leadership, or other factors that forced a change you did not anticipate.
Consider Career Coaching to Develop Strategies and Address Challenges
How do you become better prepared and more valuable in the workplace with less worry about hanging up or wanting to hang up your hat anytime soon? Consider investing in a session or more of Individual Career Coaching.
The purpose of coaching is to develop and implement strategies to help you reach personally identified goals of enhanced performance and personal satisfaction. It is designed to address challenges the person being coached would like to consider and to help close the gap between where the person is and where they aspire to be. These challenges could include (but are not limited to) personal foundation, career development, relationship enhancement, personal growth, work-life balance, decision-making, goal setting, and plans toward achieving short- or long-term goals.
So often, we hear from construction management professionals who desire to achieve a goal yet their mindset is that if their employer is not funding the effort, then they won’t spend money for it. That is the same mindset people take with medical insurance, choosing to only go to doctors who are covered by traditional insurance or get treatments covered by their monthly premium and deductible, despite paying for an out-of-pocket treatment that will heal their current pain point.
A Holistic Approach for Personal Growth
Coaching is a holistic approach to help you identify and choose to do the work to heal in areas that might be inhibiting your relationships and choices in your career. Coaching is not therapy, counseling, advice giving, mental healthcare, or treatment for substance abuse or any addictive behavior. The coach is not a licensed mental health professional, therapist, or counselor, and coaching is not intended as a replacement for counseling, psychiatric interventions, treatment for mental illness, recovery from past abuse, professional medical advice, financial assistance, legal counsel, or other professional services.
Coaching is a confidential relationship, and the coach agrees to keep all information strictly confidential, except in those situations where such confidentiality would violate the law. The career coach must protect the confidentiality of the communications with the client and empower the coaching client to make subtle changes toward positive results and goals.
Whether today, tomorrow, or down the road, when you have a day where you want to “hang up your hat,” consider investing in learning more about you and why. If you believe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, which translates to “it’s easier to stop something from happening in the first place than to repair the damage after it has happened,” and be on the offensive instead of defensive when it comes to your career, click here to book your coaching session now!
To Your Prepared Success,
Suzanne Breistol
