How development professionals can turn fear into career growth

With thousands of global development professionals experiencing job losses, furloughs, or reduced hours and pay, and many more worried that they might be next to experience this hardship, fear is an emotion being broadly felt in the social impact space. “If you're feeling unsettled and scared and uneasy about the future, know you're in good company,” Spencer Campbell, a social impact careers coach and the founder of Spencer Campbell Talent Agency, told our audience in a recent digital careers event. However, according to Campbell and Dan Freehling, a leadership coach and founder of Contempus Leadership, listening to your fears rather than running away from them can set you on a path to landing the right role and establishing meaningful career growth. “Whether you realize it or not, our actions are often driven in part by our fears and the trick is recognizing that,” Freehling said. Here are a few key takeaways from Freehling and Campbell's timely and impactful presentation and workshop on what your fears can reveal about what’s next for your job search. Start by listening to your fears “I meet so many people who bring this heightened fight [or] flight energy to their job hunt because of the stakes. The fear is there. It's very real. But it's because it has not been considered or reflected,” Campbell said. According to Freehling, the trick lies in “intentionally incorporating [fears] into a strategy rather than being driven by them and not realizing it.” They recommend listening to your fears as a first step for any job seeker striving for direction in their job search. “Fears should be used to inform our needs and our wants. Start by “getting these down on paper [and] getting these out of our heads.” Understanding needs vs. wants Figuring out what you need from your job and what you want out of it is a “deliberate process of sitting with them and making sure they make sense for you,” Freehling said. They recommend reflecting on your needs and wants and “putting them explicitly out on paper. rationally thinking through them and seeing, ‘Is this really a need?’And if it is, then how am I going to meet that [and] what kind of actions am I going to start doing, stop doing [or] continue doing?” Freehling added. Freehling and Campbell provided our audience with a writing exercise that is based on their “4 Circles” model for determining and reflecting on this concept and others they discussed. Deciding on a strategy A major fear for many professionals is having enough financial security to take care of family and basic needs. For those in this situation, you may need to prioritize “a much faster [job] search, and it might be a much more expansive [and pragmatic] search, Campbell said. He suggested doing a careful assessment of your budget before deciding on this kind of approach, so you fully understand how long you can sustain your job hunt. Campbell also emphasized that “there's no shame in running the search that you should be running. We just want to make sure that you're actually doing that for reasons that make sense for your situation.” Ready to stand out from the crowd and get noticed by the recruiters who matter most? Update your Devex profile and start connecting with top global development recruiters now.