Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction
00:01:53: Defining career complacency
00:04:03: Carrot-and-stick consequences
00:07:20: Two ways to spot complacency
00:11:41: Ideas for action…
00:12:29: … 1: find some career inspiration
00:16:07: … 2: add some experiments into your week
00:20:14: … 3: connect with an ambition ally
00:22:21: … 4: set yourself a short-term resistance goal
00:26:38: … 5: have some learning to look forward to
00:29:28: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly show where we talk about the ins, outs, ups and downs of work, and share some ideas for action to give you a little bit more control over your development, and also maybe just a little bit of confidence that you're not going through all of this on your own.  Every week on the podcast, our episodes are supported with lots of other resources to help you learn.  So, whether you download our PodSheet, you swipe through our PodNote, or you join the conversation on PodPlus, there's lots of extra stuff to help you.  All of that is on our website at amazingif.com. 

Sarah Ellis: And this week, we're talking about how to overcome career complacency, which might sound like quite a tough topic.  I feel like we're going to be quite tough with people today. 

Helen Tupper: I think Sarah's given me some feedback.  She's like, "I think we should do this episode, Helen". 

Sarah Ellis: I did say that, actually; I did say that.  Yeah, like, have we got to that point in our relationship where we start to give underhand feedback?!

Helen Tupper: Thanks for that!

Sarah Ellis: And actually, I found a really good quote from LinkedIn founder, Reid Hoffman, where he says, almost his maxim for life is, "It helps to consider yourself in a constant state of beta".  And really, I think this is the idea of always being work in progress, never letting ourselves get too comfortable or coasting for too long.  Helen and I were chatting before, we were like, we know there are certain moments where of course it is okay to give yourself a bit of a break.  And I don't think the opposite of career complacency is being 100% always on, full on all of the time.  But I think if you don't watch out for this, or if today as you're listening you think, "Do you know what, I have slipped into this, perhaps without noticing", it's a good moment to just think about, "Okay, well, what might I do differently?  What actions might I start taking?" 

Helen Tupper: So, maybe let's start with what we mean by career complacency and why it might happen, and then we can talk about what are the implications and how you can start spotting it for yourself.  So, what do we mean by career complacency?  So, this is where you've become a bit passive about what you're doing in your job today.  So, are you improving in your job?  Are you learning in your job?  And you're also potentially not investing in your future growth either.  So, you're not thinking about, where could I go with my career, how could I grow, where could I learn next?  None of that sort of curiosity is there.  Instead, complacency has kind of taken hold, and it's sort of same again every day.  And this might happen for a number of reasons.

So, it might be that complacency has crept in because you've been in your role for quite a while, and maybe if you're quite comfortable in your job, you're quite enjoying it.  We were talking about our examples of this and I was talking about a time in my career when I think I was a bit complacent, and I was quite enjoying what I was doing, I think I was just having quite a lot of fun.  And again, fun is not bad, but I think if you're complacent for a long time, it can cause issues that we'll probably talk about.  Also, another reason why you might become complacent might be because of your peer set.  So, maybe your peers aren't really investing in themselves and their development, what they're doing today or thoughts about the future either, so you've not got that stretch in the people that you are spending time with. 

Other parts of your life might feel really full on.  So, I think I've probably been a little bit complacent at times because I've just been juggling, like juggling kid stuff and work stuff and thinking, "I'm not sure I can do another thing right now".  And so, maybe life being full on affects how you feel about your work and how much you invest in that too.  And also, the patterns.  Our brains love patterns, they like familiarity, they quite like sameness, and so actually forcing yourself to do something different in terms of your development, whether that's the people you spend time in, or who you're learning from, where you're learning, all that kind of difference, isn't always natural for our brains.  Our brains are quite attracted to doing the same stuff; that feels a bit easier, a bit more comfortable to do. 

Sarah Ellis: And so, I think there is a carrot-and-a-stick consequence to career complacency that's worth considering. 

Helen Tupper: I can see the LinkedIn post already, I think, carrot-and-stick complacency!

Sarah Ellis: I think the carrot is that if you don't do this, you will miss out on being matched to opportunities to progress or to get involved in things that you'd actually find really interesting, where you could explore your potential, but you'll miss out because your skills are not standing out.  You know, if you're just turning up and doing enough and just being okay, you're unlikely to be front of mind for all of those interesting things that could come your way.  And if you've fallen into that waiting rather than creating around your own growth, your own career, your own development, again you're unlikely to spark the opportunities.  We've talked before about pulling possibilities towards you.  I think when I'm the opposite of being complacent, it's funny how really fascinating things start to happen.  And that's, I think, because of all the small actions that you are proactively taking.  So, that's the upside, that's the carrot.  I think you become, we sometimes use this phrase, "A magnet for more".  So, you're almost doing the opposite of that, I think if you've become too complacent, you stop being a magnet for more, more opportunities, more possibilities, more progression.

Helen Tupper: Do you repel; you repel your relevance?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, maybe.  I was like, "What's the opposite of being --" I was trying to think, as I was saying that, I was like, "What's the opposite of a magnet?  I don't know!"  Yeah, repelling.  If you want to go for the stick, if you are more motivated by loss and what you won't get, and I would always worry about this because this has happened to me, is I think if you become too complacent, you can become really vulnerable to organisational changes, and a change in your context which is completely out of your control, but these changes are inevitable, they do just happen all of the time.  I don't think it matters what kind of job you do, what career stage you're in, what kind of organisation you are in.  Things will change that you just don't know about and where, I don't know, a role or a team might get merged together and you just didn't know that was going to happen. 

I was reading actually about kind of when you're most likely to become complacent.  And I think sometimes it's, as Helen described, you've just basically got too comfy.  You've sort of settled into your role too well, and you need to shed the warm blanket that you've got around you.  Or it can be that you are actually really successful.  So, if things are going really well, it can also cause you to be complacent.  And there was a time in my career where I just felt like, you know when you feel like, I'm in a job where I found my flow, I was doing some great learning.  I felt like nothing could go wrong.  And inevitably in that moment, and I've had that actually happen to me twice, things then didn't go really wrong, but really massive changes happened to me that I couldn't have predicted.  And I wasn't super comfortable, so I probably was in a good enough position to be okay.  But I think if I'd done some of the things that we're going to talk about today, I would have been in an even better position. 

So, we were chatting that it can sometimes be quite difficult to spot that you have got complacent.  Also, it does feel a bit confronting, right, it's not particularly like, "Oh okay, yeah, this perhaps is me a little bit".  So, two ways to think about this.  One, imagine this scenario and see how you feel about it.  So, we're recording this the start of October, second week of October in 2024.  Fast forward now to 2025, the start of 2025, and imagine that your role or organisation, if you want to be even more dramatic about it, disappears.  How are you feeling, responding, reacting to that.  Now, everybody universally would find that scenario difficult, of course we would.  But if you've got really complacent, it would be much, much harder for you, your ability to find your way through that adversity.  The strength and speed of your response to adversity, as we sometimes talk about in terms of resilience, would be much better if you'd not got complacent.  So, that's not that good to imagine, but it's one of those worst-case scenarios that can actually sometimes trigger just an acknowledgement or an awareness, "Actually, I do need to do something about this". 

Then, if you prefer not to imagine a big zoomed-out scenario and you'd rather have some binary questions, here are some binary questions for you.  Is most of your week spent doing things you've done before?  Yes or no.  Is most of your week working with people you already know?  Yes or no.  Do you spend most of your week using skills you've already got?  Yes or no.  Do you always prioritise your day job over your development?  Yes or no.  Now, not too difficult to work out there that the yeses are bad and the noes are good, which might feel slightly counterintuitive, but it is just a good way to start to think about where you might have some complacency.  Because actually, when I was thinking about this, I was like, I'm never complacent about running a company, because I think there is something about running your own company that it's very hard to ever feel complacent.  But I think I have pockets of complacency based on sometimes doing things I've done before. 

So, I might say, "Well, we do a podcast every week and we've done that for, what, 430 weeks in a row.  And that podcast hasn't changed that much during those 430 weeks".  So, that is a good area to spot to be like, "Have I got a bit complacent about the podcast?"  And I think we had, and that's actually what triggered us to think about things like the sprints that we've done for the past two years.  That's a good example of how you overcome that complacency is go, "Well, what else or how else could we do this?"  So, I don't think this has to always mean I'm complacent across every area of my job or my role, but you might have got a bit complacent about your relationships or your skills or how you do your job. 

Helen Tupper: I also distinguish, when I think about this, complacency on my job and complacency on my career.  So, when I reflect on those questions that you shared, I don't think I'm complacent in my job, because I'm always iterating and sharing and building, and I've done some of that today with the team and with people outside of our company, so I feel like I'm not complacent in my job.  But I do think sometimes I've become complacent in my career.  You know the question, do you spend most of your week using skills you already have?  I think I probably do.  I don't think I think, "Oh, who has got a skill that I don't have, and what could I learn by like trying it on a little bit?"  Like if I tried to do a little, what would that feel like?  And I think I often prioritise my day job over my development.  I think there are certain things that I, for me, it's that balance that I think, "Oh, am I investing enough in myself so that I have the resilience and relevance, or am I investing all of that in my job so that my company does?  And I appreciate again, like Sarah says, we run a company, so it has slightly different challenges I think to when I worked in large companies like Microsoft.  But I think I would have said the same thing.  Sometimes I would have probably prioritised as a manager.  I would have spent so much time thinking about managing my team and their career and their work that I didn't always manage my own career with the same level of commitment. 

Sarah Ellis: And so, we've got five ideas for how to overcome career complacency that we're going to talk you through now.  Just one connecting-the-dots moment before we move on.  One of the important counterpoints generally to complacency is learning agility.  And so, we have done a podcast episode on learning agility, and we also have a learning agility assessment.  Learning agility is all about succeeding in new situations.  And so in there, we talk about navigating newness, understanding yourself and understanding others.  And so, what we haven't done is repeated any of that today, we've got new ideas.  But I think if you feel like actually, as you've listened to this, you're like, "This is really important for me, this is a must do", you might just want to combine listening to today with listening to that episode too. 

Helen Tupper: And we'll put the link in the PodSheet and the show notes as well just to make it easy for you to find that episode.  So, idea number one to overcome career complacency is to find some career inspiration.  So, part of the reason for you feeling a bit complacent might be because you sort of need that whole like, "Can't really see what I can be", or, "Can't see beyond where I am today".  So, finding some people whose careers you admire, and that might be inside the company or outside the company, can be quite a useful way to reconnect with a bit of career inspiration.  And when you're looking at those people, you're not trying to copy their career, I don't think that's going to work very well, but I think you are trying to consider, well, what are the skills that they are using in their job, or what are the experiences they've had that are appealing to you, and what could you do to develop in those areas or gain some of those experiences? 

So, I was actually thinking, somebody that keeps showing up on my LinkedIn feed, and weirdly I was scrolling through my phone and there's a picture of me on a boat with her, and I was like, "Oh, that's funny!", but it was June Sarpong.  I really respect June Sarpong.  I respect the different things that she's done.  I think the length of her career, she's been inspiring for a very long time and has championed causes for a very long time, from creativity, from diversity; she's done some interesting stuff recently in terms of politics, which I found quite interesting to see; entrepreneurship, so she does quite a lot with EY.  I feel like I keep seeing June in different places in my life.  And in terms of why I get inspiration from her, I think it's the cause-related career that she has basically created for herself, and how she stands up for something.  She definitely has these principles that she stands up for and she uses her voice.  And I really respect how she's built a profile that helps other people. 

If I was writing them down, it'd be those things.  And you think, "Well, okay, I could do some of that.  I don't need to be as famous as June Sarpong to do that.  I could do some of that on a small level, like what are the courses, how do I use my profile to help other people?"  And it can sometimes just unlock your thinking, I think, a little bit about your career. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I was thinking about this and I always find Margaret Heffernan really inspiring.  And she's been on the podcast before as well, you can have a listen to her there.  But one of the questions she gets asked most frequently is, "Why are you still working?"  And she's like, "Well, because I'm still curious and got a lot to give and really interesting and interested".  If you read her words, she's got a point of view, she's really well-read, she's very interested in technology, which you might sometimes be like, "Oh, that's harder when maybe people are older", but she's the exact opposite of that.  She actually wrote a really good post about Lean In and how Lean In hasn't dated very well, which is worth a read on LinkedIn.  It's a really fascinating reflection on, you know, sometimes things have a moment in time, right, but it doesn't always last well. 

So, again, a bit like you were saying, I don't have to be her.  I think she is more externally opinionated than I think I maybe could ever be; I feel like she's braver than me in her points of view, certainly that she shares; but I feel like she is that kind of insatiably curious, always learning, doesn't really ever want to stop doing that and is staying really relevant.  And I'm like, "That's what I want to be", you know when you're like, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  I'm like, "That", but maybe without the quite as overt opinions necessarily, which feels slightly less comfortable for me, but maybe that's a good thing, right?  It stops you being complacent.

Idea number two is to add some everyday experiments into your week.  So, very practically, this is what I think I do to overcome complacency, where I am doing something that I have done before.  So, for example, we run lots of career development workshops and career development programmes.  And I think it'd be really easy for Helen and I to get complacent about that, to know that we do a good job and just think, "Well, our job to do is to do that on repeat".  And I'm always really proud of the fact that we haven't done that.  I think we continually experiment and that stops us being complacent.  And some of those experiments work and some of them don't work quite so well.  But just to give you an example, last week I used music for the first time as part of a programme I was running, and actually it worked really well.  It meant I had to get my head around some tech that I hadn't really used before, just in terms of how to make that happen.  You know when you're like, "Oh, it'd be so much easier not to do this"?  There were a few times where I thought that, but I was like, "No, keep persevering with it". 

Also, I'm not that confident about music generally.  I was like, "I feel like I'm not very knowledgeable".  And just stupid stuff.  I was like, "Is someone going to swear in this song?"  I felt like I had to listen to these songs.  I'd actually got, for something that sounds so straightforward, I got quite a lot of worries about it.  So, it stops you being complacent, right, because it's not familiar, it's not something you've done before, you're not following a pattern.  And then slightly unusually, very unusually actually, I was working on Saturday this week and doing a session for some students over in the US on a different tech platform, and inevitably playing music on that tech platform is different to what I'd been doing all week.  So again, it forced me to change it up, and I live had to work it out when I had our clients on the phone, and I said to them, "I'm going to try two things and if it doesn't work, don't worry about it, it's a nice-to-do".  But that also feels really the opposite of being complacent to me, because you know like showing your working always feels quite exposing?  And I was like, "No, just take a deep breath and persevere with it". 

But I always see how any small experiments you do, it just stops you having that same-again status quo.  And it doesn't matter too much what the experiment is.  Maybe it's leading a team meeting in a different way, maybe it's turning your agendas into discussion, decision agendas.  That was a very popular experiment that I talked about last week in a programme, rather than just a list of bullet points.  Basically the point is like, mix it up a bit. 

Helen Tupper: I did this last week actually.  Well, a couple of things came together.  I saw that LinkedIn are now prioritising video, and LinkedIn is quite a big way that we connect with people.  I thought, "Oh, I haven't done video for a while".  I used to do career tips all the time on Instagram.  And I think I've just become a bit de-skilled, like the technology has moved on, and my skills haven't.  And so I was like, "Right, you are going to post a video using a new bit of technology".  And it was really uncomfortable, because you waste a lot of time.  You know, at the beginning, I'm like, "I downloaded that, that doesn't work.  Oh, I don't know how to use that.  I can't work out how to do captions here".  You have to waste a bit of time.  But then, you get so much pride. 

So, I found an app and I posted it.  Was it the best thing because on LinkedIn?  No, it was not the best thing on LinkedIn.  But as a result of that experiment, I now know how to use some bit of technology that I didn't use before.  I'm going to do A Week in the Life.  Sarah and I got quite a busy, busy Squiggly week, seeing lots of different people this week. 

Sarah Ellis: Is that why you were just taking a picture of me with your phone?

Helen Tupper: Oh, did you see that?  Hilarious!

Sarah Ellis: You totally thought you'd got away with that.  I was like, "What is she taking a picture for?"  I'm going to -- this does make me sound glamorous.  Should I take some pictures from Paris this week? 

Helen Tupper: Well, it was a week in my life, but I'd love to do yours!

Sarah Ellis: Oh, sorry!  Well, I was like, "Why are you taking a picture of me?"  Because our podcast was together? 

Helen Tupper: Because you're in my life.

Sarah Ellis: Oh, okay, fine.  Okay, yeah.

Helen Tupper: Do you know what I would like you to do? 

Sarah Ellis: It's all about me. 

Helen Tupper: Take some pictures in Paris.  Sarah's going to Paris to support a big company with some really important Squiggly stuff.  I would like you to take some pictures of you in Paris, and I'd really like you to post about that on your own LinkedIn page. 

Sarah Ellis: Our life, no thanks! 

Helen Tupper: No, add that to your everyday experiments!

Sarah Ellis: No, thank you.

Helen Tupper: "No, thank you.  Opted out"!  Oh, moving on, moving on to idea number three to overcome career complacency, which is to connect with an ambition ally.  So, this goes back to the point we said, "Well, why can we sometimes kind of fall into complacency without realising it?"  And it might be that you're just with a group of people who, they're just not that interested in development, which is okay, but it might not really help you.  And sometimes, connecting with an ambition ally, so this is somebody who is proactively learning something, they're exploring their career, maybe they're having some career conversations, they're just doing something with their development, that can sometimes unlock that spark with you. 

I always have this with Sarah.  I don't think I've ever had anybody in my life that is as curious and challenging as Sarah.  You will always be like, "Oh, we could do it better, or what about this?"  Or you'll always be reading.  Sarah always contributes something new, and it always makes me think, "I can't rest on my laurels".  That's quite old-school language!  I'm like, "Got to keep my game up, or I'm going to not contribute that much to the company!"  And it's never a competitive thing, but I definitely think it just makes you think, "What can I bring?  What can I contribute?"  And so, having those non-competitive relationships with people who are invested in improving I think is so helpful for your career.  And as I said, I've always had Sarah, I have the EY Winning Women as a community that I've been part of for a year.  I graduated.  I think it was last week, I had my graduation, did I tell you?

Sarah Ellis: Oh, did you?

Helen Tupper: I graduated.

Sarah Ellis: No!

Helen Tupper: Yeah, they can't get rid of me now.  I'm basically in this never-ending alumni; it's brilliant!  But that has been amazing because I've been spending time with women whose businesses are bigger, or they're based in different countries, and just learning through them and questioning what I don't know has been really helpful.  So, that could be like a one-to-one relationship, like someone else who's investing in themselves and improving in different areas; or like a one-to-many, so that could be a professional community, like a peer-based community.  I mean, you could create it, but those communities or ambitioned allies are really, really helpful to keep you learning. 

Sarah Ellis: Idea number four is about setting yourself a short-term resistance goal.  This is a new idea that we've come up with from reading a bit about complacency, and I really like it, because I do quite enjoy starting with a negative, or giving ourselves permission to talk about the things that get in our way and hold us back in a way where then we can use them as fuel for our development.  So, there will be something that you're resistant to, whether it's something you're apprehensive of, you're scared of, you know when you're like, "I'm just not good at…".  Or, maybe something that you put in the box of, "It's not really my job", or you kind of dismiss it as like, "Well, someone else will do that".  So, something that you feel some resistance towards.  I reckon everyone listening will be able to recognise that, because none of us are perfect, so we will all have something here.  And if you use that as a starting point to set yourself quite a short-term resistance goal, so this is not over the next year, I think this is in the next month, at least to get you underway, because you're trying to break free of this complacency, I guess.  Then actually, it will just help you to do something different.  You can almost then start to have fun with it, I think, you know, almost be a bit playful with like, "Well, I'm quite resistant to this".  I think there's a level of like, it's almost like the change curve, isn't it?  Like, "I'm accepting that I'm resistant, but then I'm actually going to take action and do something about it". 

So, when I was first thinking about this, I was like, "Well, what am I resistant to?"  And it wasn't that I was apprehensive or scared about it, but I think there are some things that just, in my head, I have a column where I'm like, "That's Helen's column"!  And I think sometimes then, do you know what, if I was being really honest, it means that on those things, I get lazy, because I'm like, "Well, Helen's brilliant.  That's in the Helen learning and leading column.  She doesn't need me.  I don't need to do anything".  And I definitely get passive and wait to be told like, "Oh, I'll wait to be told what the answer to that really hard question is.  I'm just going to leave Helen to do that work".  And so, something like our podcast, where long-time listeners will know we made the decision to take the adverts off a couple of months ago.  Now, we made that decision together, and we are exploring different ways of making sure that the podcast can pay for itself, which is way harder to do than you'd imagine.  But when I say we, Helen, Helen is exploring different commercial models for our podcast.  What's the podcast going to look like in three years' time, in five years' time? 

I think a really good short-term resistance goal for me would be to say, "In November, I'm going to talk to at least three people who I think could help me explore different ways of growing our podcast to reach new people, to make sure that it broadly pays for itself, which would just be helpful, doesn't cost us too much money, but primarily it keeps being useful.  Like, how do we make sure it's as useful in five years' time as it is today?"  And so actually, it has really prompted me to think about not being complacent about it and take that accountability, take that 'create, not wait' mindset.  And actually, even saying it out loud, making it short term going, "In November, I'm going to have those three conversations", I start to go, "Actually, I'd be quite excited about doing that.  I'd be quite interested in that".  I think I've just, you know when you revert back to default, which is why I've not done anything!  Helen's going, "Please do that"!

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I am exactly!  I'm like, "Please do that"!

Sarah Ellis: I can literally see her nodding her head, because these examples are not made up. 

Helen Tupper: That will bring you towards my thinking, rather than me having to drag you. 

Sarah Ellis: Potentially, I might have different thoughts. 

Helen Tupper: Well, you are welcome to these different thoughts.  I look forward to the conversation.  I found most useful with the resistance goal, because originally I found that kind of framing a little bit tricky.  But you know the, what do you not do because you think it's someone else's job to do?  And actually, even if we said, "Well, that is Helen's job to do that", but you could still help me to do my job. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, exactly.

Helen Tupper: And I think I do that with the team sometimes.  I'm like, "I won't research that area, I won't look into that because that's their job".  But it's not like you're trying to do their job.  It's just you're trying to learn more about their job so that you can have better conversations with them about it.  And you might avoid it for loads of reasons, because it's hard or you think it's not helpful, but I do think having some insight to have a good conversation with somebody about what they're working on is a useful way to spend your time. 

So, our final idea to overcome career complacency is to have some learning to look forward to.  And this is about planning some learning in that takes you away from what's comfortable.  So, the short-term goal might be maybe a smaller thing, like Sarah's like, "It's in November", whereas learning to look forward to, it might be slightly further out, and it might be slightly bigger.  So, you might think about, what's something new I'm going to learn, and who am I going to learn it with, and where am I going to learn?  And I think creating something that you can really connect to, I think learning to look forward to is different for different people.  So, I was looking at a new course that David Hieatt's got out, he popped up on my LinkedIn this morning, and I was like, "Oh, I would look forward to that learning because I like him and I like his brain. 

Sarah Ellis: Always good, yeah, always good. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, or even reading days.  When Sarah and I were talking, there was a particular place that I like to go where I go with my books on my own, I'm such a geek, and I just sit there with my four books or a pot of coffee, and that is learning that I look forward to.  So, some of it is with other people and some of it is just me on my own.  But I think designing learning to look forward to into your diary kind of creates that motivation, that thing, that kind of milestone that you're working towards.  And I think if you plan it in as well, you're less likely to have complacency, because that thing's already in your diary.  The planning is the hardest bit, and then that date is committed and you're more likely to do it. 

Sarah Ellis: I've definitely failed at this a couple of times this year.  So, I actually had something really specific in mind that I wanted to join, which was a learning community of people across the world who create organisations in different ways.  And I've known about it, but you know that knowing/learning gap?  And a few times I've looked at it, and then I re-look at it, and every time I can't do the dates.  So you're like, well, you're getting something wrong there, right?  You're looking at it too late in the day to then make it happen.  So, then you go back to being a bit more complacent, and you just don't make it happen.  One of the things that we have in our team is, we always encourage people to have one just pure learning day.  Obviously, we're all learning all of the time, but one purest, immersive, intensive learning day at least every quarter.  And I actually think, probably even if you're listening to this, which means you're probably a pretty good learner, sometimes we can look back over a quarter, look back over the last three months and think, "Have I just spent the day really learning?" like Helen described?  It doesn't always have to be going on a course.  You could be reading some books, you could be going to an event, could be part of a community.  Every so often, I do think you need that break away from the day-to-day. 

Often, when you talk to people about those experiences and say, "What did you gain?" as much as the specific learning, it's also that space.  It's when you spot, "Actually, do you know what?  I could try this in my job.  I haven't talked to that person for a while, or this would be interesting".  So, I think it's almost stepping away from your job temporarily then stops you being complacent, because you just see things, don't you, in a different way; you get perspective. 

Helen Tupper: Quick summary then of the five ideas for action: (1) was to create some career inspiration; (2) was to add everyday experiments into your week; (3) was connect with an ambition ally; (4) was set yourself a short-term resistance goal; and (5) was find some learning to look forward to. 

Sarah Ellis: So, I hope you found that a useful episode.  If you ever have any ideas or questions, you can get in touch with us at helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.  But that's everything for this week.  Thank you so much for listening and we're back with you again soon.  Bye for now. 

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.