Why autumn is the season for reinvention | Being the ‘office overachiever’ could be hurting you

Why autumn is the prime season for career reinvention | Being the 'office overachiever' could be hurting your career | Do you have career dysmorphia?

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Why you should be asking for feedback

One of the real indicators of your ability to continuously grow in your career is your ability to ask for – and, importantly, learn from – feedback. Accepting that you are not the finished product, that you can always learn something new, and that there is always room for improvement is a critical part of having a growth mindset. Considering constructive feedback as personal criticism, a sign that you should quit your job or proof that a colleague is evil or out to get you, is a bit like knowingly swimming into a rip tide. You are going to get swept away… and not in the direction you'd like to go.

This week, I discovered a surprisingly insightful new way to dip your toe into learning about your strengths and would-be-even-better-ifs for those struggling to cope with feeding: you ask AI. If you are logged into a platform like ChatGPT or Gemini and are using it for work or personal conundrums, the AI already understands a lot about you. Combining insights from your vocabulary, sentence structure and the types of questions you ask, through to the actual content of what you are searching, everything is a clue. So simply by sharing the prompt, 'From the questions I ask you, please highlight my strengths, weaknesses and blind spots for my own personal development,' you can get a surprisingly candid insight into some development areas.

My friends and I gave this a go and shared the answers with one another, and we could all spot the very accurate mirror of strengths and weaknesses that we could see in ourselves and each other. Plus, thanks to AI's relentless positivity, we felt pretty good about ourselves, too.

So this week, take a gamble and ask a colleague – or just a friendly bot – for some feedback. It just might be the advice you need to take you to the next step of a long and growth-filled career.

8 women on the one simple habit that transformed their working lives

Figure out your work type

Digital editor Ellen Scott shares insightful hacks to make work that little bit easier.

Are you a striver, a searcher or a stabiliser? I believe that figuring this out is an essential first step towards working in a way that feels more fulfilling, meaningful and purposeful.

If you're a striver, your sense of meaning comes from outside of work. The point of work is the money it provides. You're motivated by progression, sure, but at the end of the day, a job's value lies in how it funds meaning when you're not working.

If you're a stabiliser, your sense of meaning also comes from outside of work. But rather than money, you're motivated by work-life balance, flexibility and time. You want a job that's not too stressful, covers your essentials and allows you to clock off.

If you're a searcher, you need your job to be meaningful. Work has to provide purpose in and of itself. You find fulfilment through doing work that you believe really matters.

Not sure which type you are? Or are you ready to start working with your type rather than against it? Read my book, Working On Purpose: How To Find Happiness At Work, to get going on the right path.