Episode 25: Maintenance Mode: Your Career Has to Survive Your Life

Now, this podcast, it's not about my pregnancy, but the reason I'm coming to this 15-minute lecture slash TED Talk today is because it's been the catalyst for a bunch of conclusions that I don't think we talk about enough in our career.

I mean, we talk about how to move our careers forward, how to get results quickly, how to make use of your downtime.

You know, if you're not auditioning, here are five things you could be doing to launch your career.

And I know I have both received and given that career advice.

to others in our community.

You could be working on your social media or your demos or your website.

I have told you that here.

You could be doing research.

There is always something.

And for the past three plus weeks, I haven't been able to do any of it.

I haven't been able to do much more than the bare minimum for my basic needs.

let alone my career.

I know I'm not unique in this experience.

I know people who are dealing with chronic illnesses, people who are going through really difficult things with their families, people who are in the middle of huge life changes, and at some point...

All of us are going to have a period where life takes up more space than our career does.

And we still have to figure out how to keep the career going through it.

But I don't actually think you have to thrive through those periods.

I think sometimes you just have to maintain.

And that's what I want to talk about today.

How do we get through the periods where we're just trying to get through the effing day and make sure there's still a career waiting for us on the other side of it? What are the bare minimum things we actually need to accomplish? What do we need to remember? What do we prioritize so that when we do have the capacity to come back, we haven't completely, you know, yoinked ourselves over in the meantime? How do we stay in the good graces of the audiobook gods while also acknowledging that we are, in fact, human beings with human emotions and life happening? So let's talk about maintenance mode, because I think I need it.

And I have a feeling at some point you're going to need it too.