I am frequently asked for career advice, and I very, very rarely offer it.

Why? First, because I only intimately know my own path and those of a few others. Second, because all advice is local. What works for one person will be misery for another. Finally, when people ask for career advice, what they’re often asking is that you validate something they’ve already decided to do.

However, in the past few days I’ve been struck by stories of friends and colleagues who are feeling the effects of a shifting creative marketplace, and a decreasingly stable job market. Just like when the stock market takes a downturn and everyone gets very conservative, I see many creatives jumping at the first opportunity to come along rather than thinking about their career as an investment portfolio to be build over time.

With that in mind, here are three career investments that I think every single creative should be making now, and should continue to make consistently. These are the three aspirations that you should be chasing in order to ensure that you are positioning yourself to do increasingly meaningful and valuable work.

This episode is sponsored by Skillshare. To get two months of Skillshare absolutely free, just visit Skillshare.com/AC.

The intro music for the AC podcast is by Joshua Seurkamp. The remix is by DJ Z-Trip.