Career is often a place in life where we can go on autopilot, following a set path towards the promise of success and stability. Go to a good school, declare a major, and get good grades. Then look for a stable job, work hard to get good performance reviews, and hope for promotion. Show up […]
In the past few years I’ve trained and coached over 500 people on how to manage their career. I find most people who want to re-invigorate their career assume the choice is either to put up with what they have now or face financial risk—because surely change requires a big leap into something brand new, […]
So many people I coach have a desire to create something new in their life, but can’t figure out exactly what. They set vague goals like “find a new career that let’s me be creative” or “get a job that inspires me”, but never actually make any progress because they can’t figure out what exactly they want to do. How do you unravel the clues, read the signs, and sort out the hidden messages you send to yourself about what you really want to create in your life?
I have done this for myself multiple times in life. I have it dialed in now, and it’s one of my favorite things to coach around, but the first time was like groping around in the dark. For years I thought I wanted to get an MFCC and become a psychotherapist. In the middle of grad school, on the cusp of doing my first internship, I started feeling huge inner resistance. With dismay, I realized this wasn’t the right path for me after all. Now what?
Supporting your family, paying your mortgage, funding your retirement—we all have serious obligations that can make contemplating career change feel incredibly risky. What if I make less money? What if I try something new and fail? Even if I’m longing for a change, or feeling downright miserable, should I really risk leaving my secure job to try something new??
So many people give up before they even start. The risk of trying something new wins out over the incredible benefits a career change could give you.
How do you manage your anxiety and self-doubt when the worst happens? Laid off in his mid 50s (which he aptly calls “the throw away age group”), learn how this professional faces the end of a 30-year career and reinvents himself. Changing industries, transitioning from manager back to individual contributor, this is a story of what so many seasoned professionals are going through.
We all have our good days and bad days, positive and negative thoughts. It’s part of being human. Staying on track with the right mind frame to accomplish our goals requires that we keep our focus on what we do want, not on what we lack or don’t want.
Imagine you are taking a trip from your current state, let’s call that the desert in Arizona where you don’t have what you want, to your desired future state, which we’ll imagine is a refreshing beach on the California coast where you do have what you want. The journey to get from your current state to your desired future state takes time. If we are traveling in a car or a plane, it’s easy for us to understand how long the journey might take. But on a journey to accomplishing our goal, many of us get impatient with the time it takes. We doubt, we worry, we fret, and we turn our attention back to our starting point, to all the things we don’t have yet.
Have you ever had someone introduce you to just the right person? A long-time client just recently introduced me to Ruth Ross, who is fast becoming one of the leading champions of the “reengagement revolution.” Meeting Ruth was inspiring and reinvigorating for me. I thought you’d enjoy her message on how to re-engage yourself in your career.
In a previous post Notice What You Want, I commented that many people I coach have a desire to create something new in their life, but can’t figure out exactly what. They have a vague goal like “find a new career that let’s me be creative” or “get a job that inspires me”. When I ask what creative would look like or what inspires them, I find most people don’t really know. A common question I get from friends and colleagues familiar with my life and all the unusual opportunities I create for myself is “How do you think of all these possibilities for yourself? How do you know what you want to create next?”
What are your passions in life? What brings you joy and energy? These are the elements to begin with if you are searching for a new, more satisfying career or creative expression of yourself. What follows in an approach I first learned when facing a particularly difficult career transition. I have been refining it over the years. Now it never fails to help me locate and launch myself on a path to whatever I want to create next in my life.
“Every job has an expiration date.” I don’t know who first said it, but most of us have experienced it first hand. You dread going to work, sleepwalk through your day, and come home exhausted. “I wake up every morning and wonder how I’ll get through the day,” a once energetic business owner said to me this week. “I can’t wait to come home and have the day be over.”
Many people get stuck here, unhappy with what they do all day, but unclear about how to find something new.
How have you chosen your jobs in the past? Here are four of the top strategies people tell me they’ve used in the past…that aren’t working for them any more.
- I wait to see what I’m offered.
- I check what’s available and apply for what I think I’m qualified to do.
- I wait for something more interesting to present itself to me.
- I’m afraid I’ll never be as successful as this so I don’t even look.
Not the smartest strategies, right?! I’ve used several of them myself – we’ve all fallen back on what’s familiar and ‘standard’ – and they didn’t work well for me either.
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