A Gig Mindset Isn’t Defined By Our Type of Work.
Each year I choose a few themes to emphasize, and in 2024 two of these are “Focused Collaboration” and “Just Try It”. Both are cornerstones of being in a “Gig” state of mind. As I’ve been living and learning into my actions around these themes, I realized it’s not just because the nature of my work is more gig-style or freelance these days, but that I’ve applied a similar mindset across my career even in the corporate space.
A Gig Mindset is about leaning into change, embracing challenge, and seeing my path as non-linear periods or pockets that bring together the magical combination of challenge, amazing collaborators, inspiration, flexibility, exploration, learning, and impact that fuels growth and possibility. These varied experiences, or gigs, form a patchwork portfolio that weaves new experiences, skills, perspectives, and networks that take us new places and into opportunities that we may never have imagined.
“Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.” — Back to the Future
Whether we’re in a freelance type environment or corporate, a Gig Mindset can be cultivated to fuel innovation, creativity, and adaptability to change. We’ve heard a lot about Growth Mindset, so how is a Gig Mindset different? It’s characterized by a desire for flexibility, autonomy, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a willingness to explore that often manifests in more project or episodic endeavors. A career becomes a portfolio of opportunities to explore, learn, and adapt to new situations, rather than a linear path or a focused destination.
Embracing a Gig Mindset is like a jigsaw puzzle where we might move between and connect adjacent pieces, or jump across the canvass to where those skills or colors and shapes are sought. Or like a traveler who is always exploring new locations, cultures, and experiences. The portfolio map of where we’ve been and where we’re going is shaped by the experiences, skills, and learning journey we collect as well as the contributions we leave behind that changes and shapes those projects and connections.
Flexibility and autonomy can apply to the type of work, environment or culture, time and pace, choice of projects that align with interests and skills, as well as freedom to define how we measure success. Yet it also means continually learning, resilience in change, and having the discipline and accountability to meet commitments, balance capacity, and identify the next gig opportunity. Similar to a financial portfolio that is diversified to manage risk, a career path with a Gig Mindset becomes a portfolio of choices that shape our professional journey and can lead in alternate directions and offer different challenges and rewards. Expanding and diversifying expertise is a way to reduce or manage risk across a career that comes from stepping into the unknown to take on change along the way. Empowering autonomy in how work gets done creates an owner mentality and accountability that in any work setting is valuable for building decision making judgement, commitment, and performance to goals.
How Mindset Shapes Our Outlook And Approach
There are many career shaping aspects that are influenced by our mindset, perspective, and approach such as our source of motivation, the type of path we follow and view of what defines success, how we perceive change, and the people and environment we thrive in. Let’s briefly consider how these aspects may differ when viewed from the lens of a Gig Mindset, a Growth Mindset, or a Traditional Mindset. In this case a Growth Mindset is framed as an emphasis on continuous lifelong personal learning and development through dedication and work. And a Traditional Mindset is influenced by stability, established roles, and a more linear trajectory.
Mindset Characteristics Model
The Underlying Mindset Motivation
Motivation in a Traditional Mindset is often influenced externally with value found through advancement and status, which enables job and financial security. While motivation in a Growth Mindset is generated internally with a desire for greater self-awareness, learning and personal growth. Yet a Gig Mindset is about following the flame and seeking its energy from the freedom, challenge, autonomy and the variety of experience these collectively enable.
How Success Is Viewed The Type Of Path We Take
Careers guided by a Traditional Mindset generally follow a more vertical path of advancement with a longer-term view and more predictable linear progression. A Growth Mindset sets us on an inward path and lifelong journey of progressive enlightenment and self-improvement. In a Gig Mindset our path is more episodic or radial in nature, and driven by opportunistic short-term engagements or exploration to pursue differing challenges, environments, and types of projects that make up a non-linear portfolio.
How Change Is Perceived And Used
In Traditional Mindset stability is more preferred, and change might offer value as way to increase status or advance, rather than seeking change to shake things up. A Growth Mindset is about continuous learning and self-development, where change becomes the vehicle to make these happen. Being in a Gig Mindset, dynamic environments create energy to thrive, and are the source of creativity and variety.
What Shapes The Environment And Relationships
Traditional Mindsets foster an environment that is structured by processes, roles, and hierarchy, which guide and influence workflow and relationships. Having the space and culture of curiosity and exploration is critical in a Growth Mindset, and collaboration flows by sharing and learning from others. The nature of Gig Mindsets create risk- forward and entrepreneurial cultures that value proactive and self-guiding workflows, and collaboration that is adaptive per project and spans a spectrum of situations.
And The Gig Is Now …
No matter what the job is, embracing a Gig Mindset can open up possibilities, enable a broader view of success, ignite exploration and new collaborations, build confidence in risk taking, and fuel our energy and creativity. In today’s economic environment, maybe the better chance for growth is gig-style and horizontal?
Cultivating a Gig Mindset can start by taking small steps and applying a “just try it” approach like adding a new responsibility or side project in a current role, or taking a chance on a new collaboration to see where it might go, or maybe taking that passion hobby a step further on a path to grow it into a next stage career.
What will be your first step to live into a Gig state of mind?
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