The Pharmacist's Diary

The 10 things you must start doing today to grow your career

You will be doing yourself a great disservice to wait for growth to happen just by turning up to the same job every day. That's the road to nowhere!

Yes, a harsh statement but a fundamental one that life ruthlessly taught me, and that underpins every progress I have made in my career thus far. I hung on for too long to what I thought was my fate in pharmacy, not realising that if I want real change, I have to trod paths of uncertainty and navigate my way through growth.

And now I realise that if you want the right opportunity, you need to equip yourself early on in your career to unearth your true potential, you need to embrace growth early, and you need to take action, now!

The sooner you act, the more prepared you are to change your career, you will have the right tools, and you will be armed to embrace change. You are not throwing yourself into the deep sea, and barely trying to stay afloat like me. I waited until I was burnt out to act - it was a bit late! And I didn't have the mental capacity to cope so it took months of recovery to stand up again and rebuild years of underinvestment in my career.

Here is my list of the skills I believe you need to cultivate early on to build your career. These are NOT things that you will get immediate ROI on (you will not see improvement this month or even this year) but I implore you to get started.

#1: Identify the change you seek

In 5 years time, where do you see yourself?

If you want to change your career trajectory, figure out the direction first... hard to know how to progress without knowing exactly what it is that you want. Set the direction of your sails!

E.g.: Stay in retail pharmacy and build a speciality service in a niche I own, transition to general practice, specialise in a certain field & integrate a new service in my current role (mental health, geriatrics, deprescribing & many more), be a pharmapreneur (like me!)

#2: Get out of your comfort zone - Be comfortable with discomfort

I threw myself in the deep end a number of times throughout the last 10 years. It was so uncomfortable & unnerving, but it opened countless opportunities for me.

What did I learn? There is NO GROWTH without DISCOMFORT

If you don't get out of your comfort by doing one thing every day that makes you experience discomfort, you are stale, you are not growing!

This could be as simple as learning a new skill, or even developing an exercise routine!

#3: Build your communication skills

Learn to form arguments and articulate them, I would have joined Toastmasters if I hadn't learned how to develop my communication skills the hard way. I am still learning and have not perfected this...

#4: Adopt a growth mindset

You can become ANYTHING with the right mindset. Take it from someone who had real experience with this.

Growth mindsets mean you are always concerned about your improvement, your intrinsic belief that you can achieve anything if you have the right processes in place. Needless to say, a fixed mindset is the opposite of this.

When I started writing, I changed my mindset from 'I want to become a writer' to 'I am a writer - this pushed me to act on that belief, and it became part of my identity. Whereas, staying in the 'become' stage means 'you will get around to doing it' but you are not as proactive about it, this mindset shift produced remarkable results!

#5: Dare to be different

Don’t just follow conventional ways of doing things. Just because they have prevailed since your inception in the pharmacy world doesn't mean they are necessarily the most effective ways to achieve the desired result - question everything!

I got into digital health despite being told there is no place for it in pharmacy.

Learn to challenge the status quo!

#6: Reach out and connect

Connect with pharmacists outside your circle, and attend networking events whenever they present.

A good place to start is LinkedIn!

#7: Read A LOT

Reading transformed me totally!

It is the one habit that changed my career trajectory. Through it, I have nurtured every single skill in my life and grown to be who I am today.

#8: Find mentors within and outside your field,

Yes, you can have more than one mentor. Those from your field are essential, but those from other fields are amazing because they always add a non-pharmacy-related perspective to your growth, which you will not see whilst being entrenched in the field.

#9: Write

This is a skill that started off as a hobby & turned into a revenue stream.

There is no easy way to start but starting scrappy (I will share tips in another newsletter)

I started by journalling a few sentences at bedtime every day, then writing down my musings on the happenings in the pharmacy industry online, which quickly turned into paid opinion articles.

This newsletter delivered weekly is a great way for me to keep practicing!

#10: Volunteer at a non-profit organisation

Learning some basic governance skills can be crucial if you want to get into a governance role like me. I started by volunteering at a community group and learning some basic chairing and good governance skills. That experience led to where I am now in my governance journey.

P.S. Get early access to my content or get in touch for a chat:

• Join my newsletter community to get ONE career tip, insights & priority access to my content straight to your inbox here

• Book a 1-1 call with me to grow your pharmacy career, discuss telepharmacy, pharmacogenomics or a healthcare project

• Upskill with one of my courses here