Bring Some Color to Your Professional Development Approach

Are you a white sheep or a black sheep when it comes to your career development? If you have a deep sense of belonging to a group, you may be a white sheep. On the other hand, as a black sheep you may go against the known and be drawn to new areas to explore. Which approach is better for your professional development? Let’s look at them some more:

White sheep approach:
As a new coach I was trying to learn from what other coaches were doing. Reading the books they find important, following the big names in the industry and trying to imitate their success. I wanted to feel like one of them, so I joined a big networking group and attended their meeting. And that’s when I realized it just didn’t feel right. We all sit and listened. And even when we had a chance to introduce ourselves to each other, I realized many of the coaches wanted to sell their services to me. I had such a bad experience that I even questioned the whole coaching thing. And that pushed me to the…

Black sheep approach:
I decided to go my own way. “I don’t need to try and emulate someone else’s success story. I can just listen to my gut and create a business that would be mine, unique, one of a kind.” Following my own instincts gave me a huge sense of freedom and confidence. But I was so against listening to what’s going on, that I started feeling very isolated.

Acting like a white sheep means being loyal to your group. Building relationships around you is on the top of your To-Do list. You may follow a particular leader or idea and leverage lessons learned by others, so that you can focus on the more important tasks – protecting and nurturing the community you belong to.

If you act as a black sheep, you may be a rebel. You come up with unconventional ideas, you question the status quo, you raise your hand to test assumptions and try new ways to deal with old issues. You may inspire others as well as irritate them.

As you can imagine, it’s best to have a bit of both. Because a sense of belonging is really important to me, I decided to join a smaller, local group of coaches. It’s just about 10-15 of us and our meetings are more of a discussion. That allows us to learn more about each other. You can call it a grey sheep, but why limit yourself to the black and white world? In my mind, I’m more like an orange one with blue dots!
Look around what others do and then choose what feels right for you. Listen for what inspires you and find a group that shares your passion. As you look around, you may realize that your herd needs a black sheep or that now it’s not the right time to be one. You can change your approach every single day.

And most importantly, have fun! So, what’s your color?