World Cup 2018: career advice

As an office of women not particularly interested in football, those four dispiriting words had been confining us to an evening of staring at our phone and mumbling under our breath “it’s only a game” whilst our partners, friends and families watch as many matches as they can.

Yet for some reason the Word Cup has changed us. We love it.

Don’t get us wrong, we still come into Jems HQ every day and the first words we say are “did you watch Love Island last night?” But it was after the England vs Panama match we realised that we couldn’t stop talking about the football.

By no means experts, we’d probably make football fans cringe with our comments. We’ve all got our opinions on what teams we want to win, what we think of VAR and everything from the overzealous celebrations of England fans (can you blame us though, we aren’t used to winning) to thinking about our next game and, most importantly, wondering if we can keep playing like this.

The hype surrounding the competition through unwavering motivation, support and patriotism is incredible, especially as (without being the cynic of the group) we may have hit our peak...

It got us talking about what can we learn from the World Cup 2018 so far, to help us in our own careers?

You’re only as good as your last game
The England team went straight back to training on Monday.

Whilst it’s important to revel in your wins and be proud of your achievements you should use it as the ammunition to keep succeeding. The starting XI went straight into recovery on the Monday following their win over Panama and the rest of the team continued training. 

We can all use this mindset in order to help develop our careers. Having a recent success in your job shouldn’t mean you take your foot off the pedal. Always stay on your A game and never stop trying to learn. To really succeed, like we hope England does against Belgium, you must be focused on the next goal.

“It’s coming home”
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”

Believing you can do it is the secret ingredient in being able to achieve more.

It might feel easy to begin with, you could have played the likes of Tunisia or Panama and won, but challenges in your career are inevitable. The key to persevering through these tests is knowing that by moving out of your comfort zone you’ll develop and grow. England are comfortable and safe playing teams that just scraped through to the group stages but their teamwork, skills and abilities will be tested a lot more against Belgium and hopefully with better teams. You can’t get to the end goal, hold that trophy and be the best in the world, by having an easy ride.  

“The squad we’ve got is exceptional.  It’s not easy to pick a team. The margins are different.”
-Gareth Southgate, 2018.

Everyone has unique talents and abilities, it’s all about tapping into those abilities and ensuring you use your strengths for the right tasks. Being able to judge when you’re in control and when to ask for help is a vital skill.  It’s the understanding of your strengths and weaknesses which will help you strategise your strengths for your next task. This is what Southgate has done too. He’s contemplating six changes to the England squad, he’s sending out a team that he believes will still win but resting players that can help take England closer to overall victory.

By adapting your skills to the task whilst keeping one eye focused on the next task and overall aim – to improve yourself - you can really develop in your career.

If you do your best then your hard work will always shine.

That said, England fans might not be so lenient if we lose to Belgium even if we ‘tried our hardest’, in this instance it is the winning that really counts.

There’s a lot of skills we can learn from the England 2018 team that can benefit our careers.  The determination to succeed alongside your own belief that you can achieve your goals with the right strategy in place. That is, until Southgate calls us up and asks us to join the team.…