Our career is made up of highs and lows, special moments of learning and accomplishment and hard-won lessons that come from more painful growth experiences. All of this contributes to our character development, professional learnings and wins tangible and intangible. Sometimes we discuss these moments with others, sometimes not. If the result doesn’t fit into a succinct, quantified, external facing resume bullet, we rarely write it down. These moments have major impact on our journey, yet without recognizing them well, we lose them or forget the learning. So much of our real career education fits into a journal rather than a resume. This serves as a LIVE ACTION measure of growth – a living RECORD that reflects the ongoing nature of learning that occurs in moments big and small. We call this collection of moments Roses and Thorns.
What is a Rose? A rose is a moment that was positive and important for you that you may not be able to formally capture elsewhere. A successful sales call. Your first time presenting to a leader. Your breakthrough with a member of your team that made them better. Being chosen for a big project that would stretch you. Finding a new way to solve a problem using your technology. We have so much to be grateful for when noting the positive moments in our career.
What is a Thorn? Well, not everything goes well all the time. A thorn is a moment that may have been painful, but is an experience we mine learning from down the road. Nothing is wasted, especially not seemingly “negative” experiences. Much of what you draw on in challenging situations is what you’ve overcome in the past. If there are no missteps, there’s no growth. No hardship to overcome, no real story to tell. Remember, we are either finding success or we are learning. You didn’t get the job you wanted. You didn’t finish the project correctly and your boss wasn’t happy with you. You had a bad meeting with your team and you don’t think they trust you. You got exposed for not knowing enough at a customer meeting. Your project didn’t get approved or accepted. A very important customer said no. When happening, these moments can range from mildly unpleasant to agonizing, but we often take with us the most from these experiences.
To know yourself well and continue to highlight your key moments, you will be able to note your Roses and Thorns frequently within CareerTruth. This allows you to capture informal, on-the-job learning and quickly process emotional experiences. CareerTruth is here to help you deposit, reflect, and account for these important moments that sometimes get away from us. When you are faced with a new opportunity, a new role, a promotion, a bigger account, or an awesome but scary project, these Roses and Thorns will start to act as the “tape that you play back” when you realize you have both succeeded and overcome hard and scary things before.
This activity takes only a few minutes and these reflections are very important to understanding the fullness of your career experiences and their impact on you. If you deem a specific Rose or Thorn particularly significant enough, you can formally log it in your Professional Inventory as one of your Career Achievements or Learnings from Losses. By capturing these moments well, you will be amazed how each experience you have is incredibly meaningful to your pursuit of Mastery, Freedom, and Legacy in the moment and over time.