Build a Career That Works for You

Every career decision comes with a chorus.

Go for the K or straight for the R. Take the leadership opportunity or keep your head down and focus on your research. There is always someone whose approval is at stake — a mentor, a chair, a reviewer — and their voice tends to arrive louder, faster, and more specific than your own. We are trained to weight it that way.

But your own voice is the only one working from the full data set. It knows which parts of the work you would do for free, what you are genuinely willing to trade, what a good week is supposed to feel like. Learning to hear it again and then use it as the actual decision criterion is the bedrock of the coaching I do. Before strategy, before systems: you are the expert on you.

Sharing this little roundup of resources worth your time (links in comments) for tuning into your own voice and using it to build a career that works FOR YOU — and while we are on the topic, this is unapologetically a Kemi Doll appreciation post. She is the leading voice on this for women in academic medicine.

📅 Free NEJM live event, Career by Design: How to Build a Sustainable Life in Medicine, September 24, 12:00–1:00 PM ET —on designing a career around your own priorities instead of following a prescribed path. Kemi on the panel.

📰 Kemi’s recent NEJM Voices essay on training yourself to use your voice in academic medicine.

🎧 And if you aren’t listening to Kemi’s podcast, you should be. Episode 229 of Your Unapologetic Career, "How Hypervigilance Can Ruin Your Career" — why you will lose the comparison game every time and how to start playing your own game instead.

You are the expert on you. It takes practice to believe that again. Sharing these resources as a place to start.