Be a tree: grow in place.

Research says millennials change jobs 4 times before age 32, and job sites advise switching companies to advance in your career because “workers who stay with a company longer than two years are said to get paid 50% less, and job hoppers are believed to have a higher learning curve.”

I’m here to say: grow in place.

I’m coming up on my lucky 13th anniversary with KPMG and my 42nd birthday. I get all reflective around this time of year for sure.

My path was not direct. I planned on being a writer and a professor. I admired Professor Keating in The Dead Poets Society and imagined my own office full of books and soft pillows strewn about the floor — reading nooks and mugs of hot, bittersweet coffee. While dreaming about this and in graduate school, I worked in business development and the temp fields, a bohemian moving from company to company on long and short assignments. I was a tutor; I was a bar wench.

Life stepped in and forced me into full-time work (for health-insurance), so I put my education on hold. I wanted a job, any job, benefits, and enough salary to make my car payment and rent. When I landed at KPMG in 2006, I didn’t know a thing about the company. I found people who had been there for decades but not dusty. It was a culture that inspired growth and inspirational growth at that.

To keep growing, one needs to keep learning and working on the self. If the culture of the soil is rich, and you dig and get dirty, growth happens.

I dug into the KPMG university mentorship program. When my mentee, a junior looking to get into a Big 4 as a career accountant one day, asked me if I think it is better to stay with one company and work up or jump around to all the big firms until one clicked, it took me a moment to answer.

Do I jump ship? Isn’t that kind of what I did temp work through my 20s? Not really. I was a temp for the same agency for over 10 years. I stayed in part because I was buying time until I got into a doctoral program. But in waiting, I was getting a look and feel of many types of businesses and growing as a professional. In the end, I could go work in any company and barely ask where the copy machine was. I spent all that time growing my own tree.

Now that I have been in one place, on the same team, for near a decade, that growth is a symbiotic relationship between the environment and the willingness to feed that tree what it needs in drought and monsoon.

Of course, people can argue that poison in the environment or moving to richer soil will grow you faster, but if you are looking at Big 4s or any company that has made it into Fortune’s Top 100 Companies to Work For (KPMG is #32), falls into the category of great places to build a career. Even still, there is so much in your control (including replanting elsewhere) that the health of your career is solely in your control.

What did I finally tell my student? Only you can grow your tree.

Growing in place, like a tree, increases your value, satisfaction, and engagement. Your career is the tree, and you are the arborist. You have more control, even in the face of weather, famine, and drought, than you know.

Before you look at that seemingly greener grass, have you checked yourself? Are you keeping up on the latest arborist tech? Have you put the effort in, or are you letting your tree grow wild without tending?

I don’t want to be the weed spreading myself everywhere; I want to be a Mighty tree.

Ask yourself:

• Am I challenged?
• Am I engaged?
• Am I excited?
• Am I involved?
• Am I real?

1. Find a good challenge. You are responsible for your own advancement.

Sure, the boss and the budget might hold you back, but you must take control of your own career. This is the very heart of an attitude that can keep you interested and focused on building not just a stable job but a career you find challenging and enjoyable for years. If you are not getting it in your team, maybe you need to break your pot and send roots into other departments.

I started as a temp at KPMG 10 years ago. It took me about a year to find a network of friends within the company and then 6 months to network myself into an interview and full-time position. The soil was rich even though fields were burned in that 2008 financial collapse period. I took an administrative split-role under two bosses. It was a challenge. I advocated for advancement and an associate track role, and after a few more growth-spurts, I am a manager today in that same team. Don’t sit back and expect to be handed advancement.

2. Engage-shift your work-life. Take advantage of every educational opportunity or find some more.

Instead of being reactive, get proactive. Life-long learning is at the core. When you seek opportunities to learn and apply that new knowledge into your daily life, you’d be amazed at how growth opportunities manifest. The people I have met at internal training have become touch-points on my path and support as I learn about other teams and their functions. Going back to school to finish my post-grad degree kept feeding that learner fire.

Work is perpetual and endless. Grab the chance and take a few hours for development a week. Challenge is nourishment.

Read 30 minutes a day, every day. Read a damn book, take a developmental class, find someone to teach you, take control of your ignorance and make it knowledge.

3. Get excited, not frustrated!

Every single week I face frustrating, maddening situations whose complications compound into real day-ruining stuff. Sounds horrible? Well, if I always labeled them such, sure. I would hate being frustrated all the time. Instead, that same feeling can be turned into excitement by shifting perception. This extends from point 2 because every frustration is a chance to learn something — about yourself, your company, and your ability. Tony Robbins says “Change Your State” because “motion creates emotion.” This is why you see advice to stand during phone calls, smile when you speak and take a walk. Your blood needs to move.

When I find I am most frustrated during the day, I have been sitting for far too long — everything looks impossible and grim. My go-to is a cubicle dance party where I put something upbeat on my Bluetooth and boogie. (This is far easier when I am working remotely, but I’ve literally danced vigorously in my office cubicle till I felt my energy flow.) When you get excited and curious, you get more optimistic and energetic. Make the frustration is wind and tree; you better learn to bend and flex. Let your leaves dance.

4. Get involved and volunteer. Step up.

We are lucky to have a robust network of causes and opportunities to give-back at KPMG. It is one of the very best things about the organization. If you don’t have volunteering at your company, start it up. Find a cause that really feels good, and talk to others about it. Get your boss to buy-in to setting up something official.

Even if it is not volunteering for charity causes, raise your hand for projects outside your day job. I help organize our summer event every year and work with other departments. It gives me the chance to bond with people outside my team and see how others have built their own careers.

Stepping up for community-building projects helps break the monotony and bubble-blindness of daily work. It is amazing to share something you care about with people who also want to do good in this world. It isn’t about money; it is about more. Fertilize your tree with goodwill and kindness.

5. Stop and reality-check. Be honest with yourself.

Review time comes around. Goals that were set need to be met. It may seem rational to blame shortcomings on outside factors and claim successes on your brilliance, but reasonable is not always realistic.

Hold yourself to account as much as you hold others to account.

For me, I track successes and failures in an inside/outside fashion. How did I help or hinder? How did others? What did I actually do? Sometimes it is easier to toss blame, complain, and live in frustration. But progress is made when you can honestly own your part and make it more successful next time.

When I started adjusting my approach to reviews, I had to acknowledge my defensiveness when something I worked on had gone wrong, I realized my attitude did nothing to change the outcome, and my sharp defense made me look bad.

If you are not happy in your position, is it the position or approach to the situation? Can you change, or can your boss change anything to make it better?

Recognize when you need to prune habits, processes, and ideas. Realize your faults and seek to fix them. Sometimes your tree needs support, medication, or replanting. Regular check-ups can stop diseases and pests from infecting the whole tree.

Recap

Trees grow in place. Their roots grow deep, and their branches powerfully extend out into the world. Trees can be replanted if they are healthy to begin with, and you need time, care, and sun before you find fruit. If you aren’t getting the care and sun — move. If you are getting what you need, give it some time and do the care and maintenance yourself to get to the fruit faster. The best and juiciest fruit is born on well-maintained trees in robust environments.

HOW DID YOU GROW YOUR CAREER? ARE YOU A TREE OR A WEED?

May your roots grow deep, your branches strong, and may you find nourishment on your path through life.

This post was originally posted on my blog: http://challenge-myself.com.