Do you ever feel “stuck” at work? Like you’ve hit a ceiling? Like you are meant to do something else, but you just don’t know what it is? I think a lot of people struggle with thoughts like that from time to time. Last week, I read a great book by Jon Acuff titled, Do Over: Make Today the First Day of Your New Career. I’ve owned this book since it was first released in 2015, but I just got around to reading it. The original subtitle of the 2015 edition was actually “Rescue Monday, Reinvent Your Work, and Never Get Stuck.” I like that subtitle better, but since I’m not a best-selling author, I guess I’ll let it slide. I wish I would have made time to read it sooner because it has some great advice for people who are going through career transitions (whether it’s forced or voluntary).

About a month after I bought the book, my family moved back to Texas from Oklahoma… Transition. A year later, I took another job at another school in another city, and I stepped away from coaching football for the first time in my career… Transition. A year after that, I stepped away from the classroom in order to enter the world of administration… TRANSITION! Although I made each of these transitions voluntarily, they each required me to stretch and grow in different ways, and this book would have been really useful to me. As I read through it this week, I couldn’t help but think that I needed to blog about some of the things I learned from it.

Without further delay, let’s get in to it.

Throughout the book, Jon talks about our CSA (Career Savings Account). Here’s his formula for it:

The short explanation of this is that while we are working as hard as we can in our current roles, we are constantly investing in our CSA by building our relationships, our skill sets, and our character because we never know when we are going to make a withdrawal. That is what brings me to today’s topic. As I was reading Jon’s book, I wrote down these three notes about why you should start building new skills today.

Your current career will become extinct eventually.

How many jobs are exactly the same today as they were 10 years ago? Very few. The world is changing at an incredibly fast rate, and the way we communicate, do business, travel, teach, etc… is changing right along with it. Even if we are the absolute best at something, we cannot afford to lean on “this is the way we’ve always done it.” If we do that, we are doomed for extinction. Just ask Blockbuster.

Developing new skills will help make you “stuck proof.”

For those of you who feel stuck at work, try developing a new skill. Find something that you want to get better at, and attack it. What is your boss really good at that you wish you were really good at too? What is it that makes that one guy the best one on the team? Figure it out, and try to develop that skill. What is one of the skills that your supervisor says you need to improve on? Try to turn one of those skills into a strength. I don’t know about you, but I know that when I am stretching myself and trying to learn something new, I don’t have time to be bored or feel stuck. I get excited about new challenges and learning new things. As Jon says in the book, “It’s hard to get stuck in an old situation when you put a priority on investing in new skills.”

Developing new skills can help you find passions and dreams that you didn’t know you had.

“Passion is often found in the crucible of work.”  – @JonAcuff

Sometimes you don’t even know that you’re passionate about something until you try it. If you would have asked me 15 years ago if I wanted to be an administrator, I would have laughed at you. I wanted to coach football, and I was dead set on becoming a head football coach. When I started pursuing my master’s degree in education, I only did it in order to make myself more marketable for head coaching positions. Funny enough, by the end of my first class, I started thinking, “Man, I kind of like this stuff.” I completed my administrative internship and realized that I had a passion for educational leadership that I didn’t know existed 18 months earlier. That is what started me down this journey. Jon’s book is full of examples of people who have shared a similar experience. Had I not gotten my master’s degree, I never would have realized how much I love coaching adults, and I would have completely missed out on something I love even more than coaching football.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you got something out of it. I shared with everyone in last week’s post that my “One Word” for 2019 is PURSUE. I hope you will join me in pursuing some new skills in 2019.

P.S. If you haven’t read any of Jon Acuff’s books, you should. I’m a big fan.