Coaching practices for Broaden and Build in a New Job
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Broaden and Build in a New Job, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- My brief is so broad — "make it better," "help everyone" — that the possibilities feel infinite and I keep landing on bland, generic answers, because the problem is too big and vague for any specific, alive solution to come into focus.
- My whole job search is just refreshing job boards and firing off applications into the void, competing with hundreds of strangers for whatever happens to be posted
- Everything has gone flat and routine
- I’m about to pour a year into learning something, and I keep second-guessing whether I’m betting everything on one narrow outcome or building something that would still pay off no matter which way the future breaks.
- I’ve been reading and watching everything I can on a new field and I feel like I’m getting good at it
Practices that may help
- Broaden-and-Build, Made Practical
Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory proposes that positive emotions — joy, curiosity, love, gratitude, awe — temporarily broaden thought-action repertoires (making thinking more flexible and creative) and, over time, build durable psychological resources including resilience, social connection, and cognitive flexibility. The theory is supported by experimental evidence for the broadening effect; the longer-term building effects are primarily observational. - Narrow the scope: a smaller problem space is a richer one
Restrict the problem to a specific user, use case, or scenario — the narrower the brief, the richer the possible solutions within it.
Deliberate Constraints, Made Practical - Build and work a target list of roles and organisations
Replace passive job board browsing with active research into specific organisations you want to understand.
Informational Interviews: Career Research That Builds Your Network - Cultivate curiosity as a daily emotional practice
Curiosity is a broadening emotion that expands attentional scope and drives exploratory behavior — it can be deliberately triggered.
Broaden-and-Build, Made Practical - Platform thinking: build capabilities that enable many futures rather than optimizing for one
Invest in skills, tools, and relationships that expand your adjacent possible in multiple directions rather than optimizing for a single outcome.
The Adjacent Possible, Made Practical - Expand the circle deliberately, not aspirationally
Grow your circle through deep study and feedback, not by simply believing you are competent.
Circle of Competence - Use a signature strength in a new way each day for one week
Apply one of your top character strengths to a context or relationship where you don’t normally use it.
VIA Character Strengths, Made Practical - Protect play and creativity as broadening-state generators
Play is not time away from serious work — it is the state in which the broadened thinking that solves serious problems is most available.
Broaden-and-Build, Made Practical - Expand your role through extra-role behavior
Voluntarily take on work beyond your formal responsibilities to signal readiness for a higher-trust relationship.
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), Made Practical - Exaptation: look for how a tool or skill in one context could serve a different one
Ask of any existing skill, tool, or process you already use: "What else could this do that it was not designed for?"
The Adjacent Possible, Made Practical
Related concerns
- Broaden And Build
Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory proposes that positive emotions — joy, curiosity, love, gratitude, awe — temporarily broaden thought-action repertoires (making thinking more flexible and creative) and, over time, build durable psychological resources including resilience, social connection, and cognitive flexibility. The theory is supported by experimental evidence for the broadening effect; the longer-term building effects are primarily observational.
- Broaden And Build At Work
Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory proposes that positive emotions — joy, curiosity, love, gratitude, awe — temporarily broaden thought-action repertoires (making thinking more flexible and creative) and, over time, build durable psychological resources including resilience, social connection, and cognitive flexibility. The theory is supported by experimental evidence for the broadening effect; the longer-term building effects are primarily observational.
- Broaden And Build Play
Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory proposes that positive emotions — joy, curiosity, love, gratitude, awe — temporarily broaden thought-action repertoires (making thinking more flexible and creative) and, over time, build durable psychological resources including resilience, social connection, and cognitive flexibility. The theory is supported by experimental evidence for the broadening effect; the longer-term building effects are primarily observational.
- Broaden And Build Practices
Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory proposes that positive emotions — joy, curiosity, love, gratitude, awe — temporarily broaden thought-action repertoires (making thinking more flexible and creative) and, over time, build durable psychological resources including resilience, social connection, and cognitive flexibility. The theory is supported by experimental evidence for the broadening effect; the longer-term building effects are primarily observational.
- Broaden And Build Theory
Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory proposes that positive emotions — joy, curiosity, love, gratitude, awe — temporarily broaden thought-action repertoires (making thinking more flexible and creative) and, over time, build durable psychological resources including resilience, social connection, and cognitive flexibility. The theory is supported by experimental evidence for the broadening effect; the longer-term building effects are primarily observational.
- Broaden And Build When Starting Out
Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory proposes that positive emotions — joy, curiosity, love, gratitude, awe — temporarily broaden thought-action repertoires (making thinking more flexible and creative) and, over time, build durable psychological resources including resilience, social connection, and cognitive flexibility. The theory is supported by experimental evidence for the broadening effect; the longer-term building effects are primarily observational.
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