The Hidden Opportunities of Moving to a New Place
Hello ambitious young professionals,
This past week has been simultaneously exciting and hectic for me as I moved out of my hometown and to a new location for work. While I love traveling and exploring new areas, moving can be an overwhelming change for anyone. Let’s look at how we can set intentions to flip a nuisance into adventure and opportunity for both our personal and professional lives.
If you have ever lived in one area for a long time and had people from out of town come to visit, you have likely heard… “Wow, you have a *fill in the blank* here?! You’re so lucky that you are close to *enter location*!” We become blind to some of the awesome things around us because we become used to them. Don’t believe me? Think about when you travel to a new area on vacation. One of the first parts of trip planning is what you are going to do while in that new area. Simply being in a new environment can bring exciting new food, experiences, and weather. What if we could apply that same excitement to the location we are moving to? Relocating may still be hectic and daunting, but I decided to reframe my mindset for this move to allow me to feel excitement for my plan of experiences in this new place.
Moving to a new area provides the perfect opportunity to refocus your professional reputation and identify new personal interests. Some easy intention-setting can bring vacation-like excitement and set you up to have more opportunities in your professional and personal life.
When I refer to intention setting, I am talking about identifying what you want to accomplish/experience and where/who you want to be at the end of a set amount of time. Follow these steps to create a foolproof way to make the most out of your career relocation.
- Get clear on your professional goals/expectations
The first step in having a successful relocation (mine is due to work) is to fully understand what is expected of you. The way I like to keep track of this is to sit down with the group I will be reporting to and ask for performance and development goals. While you will have tasks for your daily role, asking for performance goals will give you a metric to ensure your efforts are aligned with your team. Development goals are either things to be set by you or your manager as they pertain to moving you forward in your professional career. Ex: write down and communicate that you want to get your MBA because you're looking to get on the management track.
Bonus tip: Keeping track of the performance and development goal progress can be a huge help for reflection during end-of-year performance reviews.
- What do you want to experience and what version of yourself do you want to become?
This is the fun part… imagine the most interesting/happy version of yourself. What is this person doing? If you need ideas, scour Tripadvisor, Google, and any of your favorite vacation planning tools to find the best food and experiences in this new place you are living. Treat this research time like you are planning a vacation. If you happen to be living in an area that lends itself to learning a new skill, add that too to dive into a new culture. My list involves must-try restaurants, beautiful hikes, salsa dancing lessons, and exploring local history.
With everything you do, you are building your brand. If you are looking to evolve your brand into a different version of yourself, use your list of activities to support the changes you wish to see. Ex: Do physical exercise 5x per week, read 1 book per month, and spend quality time with friends 1x per week. Make this list as comprehensive as you would like.
- Let’s get real
You have your two lists. Now, we need to narrow them down and set a reasonable cadence that will make these actions more possible. Keep in mind the person you want to be and the goals you are working towards. Prioritize your list in alignment with the intentions you have for yourself. I found that I was very eager and had a long list of restaurants to try, places to visit, and hikes to explore. However, I will only be in this new area for 6 months. Prioritizing my lists is allowing me to focus on the must-do activities in my limited time. Another crucial step is to set realistic expectations for how often you will try a new activity. This set frequency will help you make accomplishing your personal and professional goals into a habit.
- Do it!
These activities and goals will not go anywhere if you do not set the intention to improve your life. Add all activities and personal development to your calendar. As discussed in my previous article, setting a designated time to do something will make it that much easier to commit to doing it.
toward
This small step of visualizing your best life, finding the things that will get you to that point, and setting a rhythm for doing those things will certainly move you toward who you want to be. It is so easy to fall into a routine of going to work, going to the gym, going home, and going to bed. This routine becomes comfortable and prevents you from experiencing the benefits of a new location. While I do not endorse skipping work or the gym, I am all for planning a special experience or fresh work initiative in your weekly schedule.
I truly believe that a move provides the perfect opportunity to reinvent or further solidify your brand. As an intelligent young professional, you will see many opportunities to move early in your career. Being willing to relocate for work greatly increases your appeal to managers as a team player and opens you to many more networking opportunities. It is crucial to have an intentional mindset established to help you thrive in any location you may be living.
Whether remaining in your current location or moving to a new area, using these skills of setting intentions for your personal and professional lives will help remove the comfort blinders that many people seem to develop. I am confident that your ambition will drive you to keep looking for methods of self-improvement. I’d love to hear from you about your personal or professional goals.
During my first weekend in my new temporary town, I went to a farmers market, celebrated my move at a local restaurant from my list, and added to my priorities list of things that I wanted to do. See pictures of this weekend in the Jimmies section of this website.
Keep doing your Hot Engineer Sh*t!
