The five states of career being
Think about your career trajectory.
Now, watch this video. (It's only 1.5 minutes)
How well does this relate to your career?
In late October 2022, this video shot by Mathieu Stern of Yoann Bourgeois's performance went viral on TikTok acquiring 25.9M views! It's a testament to how art can make a profound statement about how we experience life's ups and downs.
The comments on the video are also a mini research study into why people find this performance so compelling. For some, it's how smooth Yoann is. For others, it's his gracefulness in landing after getting back up. Many mention how falling is as critical to success as progressing up the steps.
The metaphors are innumerable!
THE HIDDEN SPACE IN THIS VIDEO
I love this art piece, not for its explicit depiction of rising and falling along the journey of life or our career paths, but for how well it shows the space in between.
Yoann spends just as much time (maybe even more time) floating in the air as he does with his feet or body touching the trampoline or stairs.
You might say he's falling or rising, but I beg to differ.
In both directions, he's moving through space. He's in flight for a second. It's not as though he's on the staircase and then immediately on the trampoline. There is a transition.
The act of being between the two states (on or off the stairs) is where Yoann's in a neither-land.
A third space!
Watch his body when he's suspended in air, and notice how it's calm.
He's not struggling or flailing. His arm might reach forward. His leg might step out, but when he's in flight, he relaxes into it, embraces it, plays with it. Enjoys it.
This is the sensation of being in career flight. Being neither on a career path, nor off of it, nor struggling to get "back" to some ethereal staircase.
There are three spaces in this performance- the stairs, the trampoline, and the air- yet there are four states we can find ourselves in in our careers.
THE FIVE STATES OF CAREER BEING
I've been pondering the construct of either being on a career path or being pathless. Lost or found. Those are two distinct, binary states.
I now see there are five different states that need to be named to help explain where we are in our career.
Similar to how we use the phrases "fight, flight, or freeze" to signal a person's state of being when they're faced with a stressful or panic-inducing situation, there are five states of career being we can find ourselves in at any time.
(BTW these are my rough draft definitions)
THE FIVE STATES OF CAREER BEING:
Career Pathing: [Yes, this is a real term] Process of aligning opportunities for career growth, mapping your strengths and interests to clear career goals.
Career Pathlessness: Feeling lost, stuck, or confused in making career decisions and no clear direction or career goal.
Career Flight: Not on a path nor pathless, yet embracing a middle way. At peace- rising and falling feels natural not forced. Moving in any direction at any time while still on a quest to provide value in the world. Sense of growth and achievement come from internal validation.
Career Fight: Not on a path nor pathless, yet fighting the liminality. Discomfort and disbelief abound. Yearning to get back to "the path" but unsure of how. Likely to end up in career pathlessness.
Career Fright: Scared. Not wanting to climb up the stairs, fall down them or off of them. Akin to feeling frozen. Failure to launch or stay motivated to move forward and get back up again.
I share these five states with you to ponder and digest.
I believe we need to expand our thinking of what a career is and what it means to find a career path. To do this, being able to see hidden career spaces and explain what state we're in and know why we're there matters.
By the way, this performance is part of a larger body of contemporary art. Follow Bourgeois on Instagram to see his full body of acrobatic works.