Woo woo in business: How your astrology obsession could help your career

That big promotion might actually be on the cards.

If you’re an astrology fan, chances are you constantly find ways to weave it into your work day. You attribute your co-workers’ most annoying faults to their star sign (“Of course Sarah always takes credit for my ideas – she’s a Leo”). There are crystals cluttering your desk: pink agate for self-confidence, citrine for creativity and amethyst to stop you from burning the place down. And every inconvenience, from a missed meeting to a computer virus, is clearly the work of the mercury retrograde.

But did you know your woo woo interests can have a positive effect on your career? 

Visualisation 

Contrary to popular belief, visualisation isn’t just *imagining* something until it happens. It’s actually the technique of envisioning your dream situation, then figuring out the actionable steps to get there. I once heard a clever analogy that explains it well: have you ever tried to put together a 1000-piece puzzle without the picture on the box to guide you? No, because that’s dumb. Visualisation in your career works the same way, and it can be used for things you want to create and things you want to avoid.

If you want a promotion, are looking for a new job or have a goal you’d love to achieve, spend a few minutes every day visualising what that future looks like. Close your eyes and picture where you are, what you’re doing, what it feels like, what projects you’re working on and who you’re working with. Heck, picture what you’re eating for lunch, if it helps.

Visualisation can also help you prepare for sucky situations. If you have a big scary presentation coming up, visualise all the ways it might go wrong, and watch how you handle it. Or if you have a deep-rooted fear like presenting to a team, pitching creative ideas, or awkward small talk on a Monday morning, you can spend time visualising yourself in those situations to get yourself used to them.  

Lunar calendars 

The moon is powerful as fuck.  It affects the tides, for God’s sake, so I’m pretty sure it can influence other things in our lives – our career, for one. Basically, the moon goes through phrases, with each phase being an ideal time to optimise your career in some way.     

Take a look at the four major moon phases, for example:

The new moon brings “new beginnings” (lol). It’s the best possible time to set goals and start something new, like a new business, job, podcast, employee or product.

The first quarter moon is all about action because you can’t expect the moon to do everything for you, okay? It’s looking at your goals or current projects and altering them if needed. Then, figuring out the steps you need to take, and just starting.  

The full moon gives you a chance to review what you’ve achieved against your new moon goals, assess what’s worked, what hasn’t and what you need to do next. The full moon is also a good time to invest in relationships, so try asking for feedback, inviting someone to coffee or resisting the urge to be passive-aggressive in every email.

The last quarter moon wraps it all up. It allows you to review everything that’s happened so far and ‘tidy up’ before the next moon cycle. So it’s a good time to edit work, get organised and declutter your life – your desk, to-do list and annoying people included.

Star signs

Granted, most of our colleagues have negative astrological traits that make our lives a living hell. But here’s a thought: instead of focusing on these, maybe we could focus on the best ones about ourselves that might help us get ahead in our own career? 

First, your sun sign. This is the sign determined by your birthday, the gold necklace you wear and the 2002 horoscope you read while getting a pedicure. Your sun sign is your true self, and it can help you uncover your biggest strengths and weaknesses. For example, Aries are competitive AF and natural-born leaders. Cancers are sensitive little things that struggle to handle criticism and emotionally connect with jobs. And Geminis, the masters of words that we are, make for wonderful writers. Ahem.

Your rising sign, on the other hand, is the personality you project to other people, particularly at work. It too can also give you major insight into your strengths, weaknesses, goals and passions, which you can then use to your advantage.

Angel cards 

I don’t care what anyone says: angel cards are FUN. I’ve also found them to be super useful when it comes to work. The main thing that angel cards can help with is guidance – something we all need a lot of throughout our career. If you’re trying to make a difficult decision at work, have found yourself at a crossroads, are considering changing careers or jobs or just have no idea where you’re going, angel cards can be a good place to start. Sure, they might be bullshit, but they seem to provide comfort and get me thinking about situations differently so I can actually make up my mind. 

There are a couple of ways you can use angel cards. The easiest way (and what I usually do) is to pull one card every day. Keep the stack somewhere near where you get ready and each morning, shuffle them until ‘something’ (THE ANGELS) tells you to stop. Take the top card, and refer to the handy book for its meaning. This is general guidance for your day, but if you want more specific advice, think of a question while you’re shuffling, like “what do I have to do to get a promotion?” or “how can I drum up more business?”.

For more complex questions or situations, you can do a three-card spread. Shuffle the cards, then lay the top three cards in front of you (the top card on the left, the next card in the middle and the next card on the right). Once laid out, you can choose your own adventure: read these cards as past/present/future or situation/challenge/guidance.

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