Kismet Working Relationships: How To Find The People Who Get You In Your Career
“Same page—again!” the message from Laura’s client read. “I’m SO GRATEFUL for you!” Emails like this one come frequently into her inbox, but it wasn’t always this way.
Before becoming a writer, Laura had been a teacher and remembers physically flinching when she opened her email in the mornings.
I wanted to talk to her about what changed—besides her career—and she credits the fulfillment of her new career to kismet working relationships.
When it comes to heart-based career planning, finding kismet working relationships, those seemingly orchestrated by fate, can make all the difference. These connections feel like magic, where you and your colleagues or you and your boss move in sync with one another and maintain a balanced relationship.
But how do you know if you’ve found a kismet working relationship? And more importantly, how can you find the people who get you in your career?
This post will explore the signs of a kismet working relationship and some actionable tips for finding your career soulmates.
Making The Leap: A Lesson In Magic
“I don’t think I can do this anymore. I want to quit,” Laura texted her husband. In the hallway, teenagers noisily filtered from one class to the next while Laura, in her darkened classroom, reread the draft of her resignation letter on her computer screen for the twentieth time.
“To pursue a career in writing.”
Since she was sixteen years old, Laura had never been unemployed for any amount of time. “I never quit one job without having the next one lined up,” she said. But this time was different. “The next one” was more an idea than actual employment. An idea that she could “maybe make it as a writer.”
She felt it was tenuous at best. “I always thought I’d teach for 30 years and then retire, so I didn’t have a backup plan,” she explained.
After teaching for 13 years, she ended up in urgent care three times in one semester. The various stress-related illnesses ranged from intense, unexplainable vertigo to a case of shingles – in her 30s.
For Laura, one thing was becoming increasingly clear: She needed a career plan B. Teaching was wearing her thin.
“Go for it, babe,” her husband texted back, and before she could reason herself out of her decision, she hit print and delivered the letter to her principal.
“I was always a super cautious person, so I should have felt terrified!” Laura reflected later. “But when I resigned, I didn’t feel scared at all. Instead, I felt relief and peace. Free.”
Despite not feeling like she has a solid plan in place, the truth is Laura had begun working toward this resignation—months and weeks earlier—thanks to the power of microsteps.
She’d created a website, business cards, and a blog called “A Life I Want,” where she wrote about her teaching struggles and her intentions for her new career. Besides an old friend from college, she told no one about her website or blog, but she loved to check the analytics. The only hits on her website/blog would be the two of them each day.
Next step? Social media.
Despite Twitter’s popularity at the time, she’d never joined, and according to what she’d learned was needed for success as a writer, it was time.
The weekend after she turned in her resignation, she created a Twitter account and began following a few strangers in the writing field. Before long, she had her first 10 followers. It was time to tweet. So she wrote her first one:
“I’m a crazy person. I just quit my teaching job of 13 years to follow my dreams of being a full-time writer. I’m building from the ground up and looking for a #writingcommunity.”
Then she hit send and forgot about it.
And that’s precisely when the magic happened.
“I logged back in, and there were so many likes and comments,” Laura said. “At one point, it was like ticker tape, you know, the numbers just kept scrolling and scrolling! There were so many nice comments, and I was naive and tried to respond ‘thank you’ to every one of them, but I just couldn’t keep up!”
According to the analytics of that particular tweet, half a million people saw Laura’s tweet.
Looking away from the ticker tape, she logged into her website analytics. Until then, her daily visits had been 1 or 2 a day. Now, in just one day, her website had had 1400 visitors. By the end of the week, she had a couple dozen more blog subscribers and 2400 Twitter followers. Reading through her mentions, she saw people from abroad sharing and praising her writing.
Most importantly, her messages contained invitations to pitch her writing, so she began to get paid for the first time.
“It was a surreal moment. I just thought: the universe had my back all along..”
The Power of Perfect-Fit Working Relationships
As an introverted teacher, Laura struggled to be “on” all day. She needed time to recharge, and she wasn’t getting it with the amount of “to be graded” work that came home each night.
She held herself to a high standard, but the school administration was often light on praise and heavy on criticism. She started having panic attacks before Meet The Teacher Night and even when she needed to call students’ parents.
As a lifelong writer and an English teacher, Laura knew she was a strong writer, but would she be any good at finding clients? She dreaded phone calls. She hated selling. She was uncomfortable talking herself up and marketing her skills. She didn’t even show up much on social media. How would she find the clients she needed to survive as a writer?
Now, four years later, Laura serves a handful of clients regularly and monthly. According to her, each one appears to be hand-picked from the universe for her unique style, values, and passions.
“They never require me to ‘hop on a call.’ Every project is hashed out via written communication—my preferred kind—and all communication comes from a place of gratitude and respect. It’s clear that they value my work, and they speak my love language: words of affirmation!
Best of all, I now get to take my kids to and from school. And then, I get to get in my zone for work and write most of the day. I also take breaks as needed, so my physical and mental health has greatly improved since leaving teaching!”
Kismet working relationships bring out the best in you and the best in your work.
The 3 Qualities Of A Kismet Working Relationship
A kismet working relationship is like finding a career soulmate. They’re the perfect puzzle piece that seamlessly fits into your professional life—and when you experience it, you know it’s something special.
- Heart-based
A kismet working relationship is one in which your heart-based goals align with one another.
Perhaps you connected perfectly and at the right time to begin an important project. Or maybe you’re frequently on the same page because you share common values, like mindfulness or “people over profits.” However you came together, you both feel seen, heard, and understood—and often, it’s a welcome relief from past working relationships that were less of a fit.
- Easy
A perfect-fit working relationship flows with ease and requires minimal effort. Ideas flow freely, communication is open, and collaboration thrives.
It’s that kind of rare connection that naturally brings out the best in both parties – because each person’s strengths complement and enhance the other’s. As a result, the daily grind becomes more fulfilling and free-flowing.
- FUN
Perhaps the best part about being in a kismet working relationship is that working with someone who understands and appreciates your strengths is FUN. (And vice versa for them!)
Together, you begin to achieve remarkable things—and inspire each other along the way.
How To Find The People Who Get You In Your Career
- Focus on your intention more than your step-by-step plan.
This doesn’t mean “quit setting goals.” Goals are great—and necessary—but are you trying to microplan your next ten years to unfold in one specific way? Well, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment.
Instead of focusing on your “ten-year plan”, try writing about how you’d like to feel in ten years. Or five, or one, or six months. Then, set your intention and let go of whatever arbitrary timeline you’ve come up with. Things may happen much faster, or they may happen slower, but usually, the path that will actually get you to that feeling looks much different than what you would plan.
With patience and trust, you create space for magic. You don’t need to know every single step ahead of time. You just need enough courage to take the steps when they appear. Because they will appear when you’re ready.
- Learn and grow with microsteps
As you move toward a career that fits, it’s important to adopt a “growth mindset.” A fixed mindset is one in which you are convinced that your behavior, intelligence, and capabilities are “fixed” for life. You can’t become “good at math” or a “stronger communicator.” You’re just stuck.
A growth mindset, however, opens you up to possibilities.
- You can learn calculus.
- You can learn to communicate more effectively.
All of your behaviors, intelligence, and capabilities are changeable, and you can transform through the power of microsteps. Often, 15 minutes a day is all you need to create change in your life.
- Become your most authentic self.
Finding kismet working relationships means getting real with yourself. You must be honest about your interests, values, and what you want your life to look like.
This will require getting in touch with your inner wisdom. You can learn to get back in touch with yourself by journaling, practicing mindfulness, meditating, or going on daily walks (I call them “soul strolls”).
As you follow the path to your truest self, you’ll be amazed at who you meet along the way and who joins you on the journey.
- Stay open to possibilities and unexpected magic.
Now that you’ve adopted a growth mindset and begun to become your most authentic self, it’s time to look outside the box.
“One of my first jobs I got as a writer was to write a YouTube script for 50 bucks,” Laura said. “It wasn’t much money, but it was something new, so I thought, why not? So I wrote that script, and then that client needed more work. It was the key to eventually leading me to those clients I love today.”
Magic can come from any direction. Participate in life and meet new people. Embrace unexpected opportunities, knowing that anyone you meet in the process can be the connection you’ve been looking for.
- Practice gratitude freely.
We can become so busy trying to “manifest” what we want that we overlook the experiences and people who come into our lives that are exactly what we need.
Try approaching each relationship from a place of gratitude; you’ll be amazed at what and who finds their way to you.
The Bottom Line
Your HEART-based career awaits you on the other side of your anxieties and fixed ideas. If you want guidance on incorporating these lessons into your own life, Flourish Careers is here to help.
Together, we’ll create a career plan connecting you with the people who get you – so you can truly flourish.
