Four ways to take control of your career
One of the biggest myths about career planning is that you have to ‘know what you want to be when you grow up’ before you can start to make changes. Here’s the truth: most people I work with don’t have a clear direction in mind. Does that mean they have to wait until they figure it out to take action? No! But you can waste a lot of time and energy going round in circles. So here are 4 ways to get ready for your new career… even if you have no idea what it is.
What’s not working for you now?
First of all, take stock. If you’re considering a career change, it’s because something’s not suiting you in your current situation. That seems obvious - but it needs unpicking because that’s where juicy answers lie. And, when we don’t know what we want, quite often we can more easily pinpoint the things we know we don’t want. So let’s start there.
Picture your current work situation. What’s not working for you? Think about:
Your working conditions, including pay, hours and location
Your colleagues and management
The purpose of your job
The day to day tasks that fill your time
Anything else that leaps out.
Identify the specific things that are bringing you down. Now, flip them. For example, if you’ve identified that your working location is a problem, what would work for you? What does ‘good’ look like?
In this way you can start to use the negatives in your situation to shine a light on what you most want and need.
What is working for you now?
Most people stay stuck in a job because there’s enough going on that suits them to keep them there. Think about it: if everything was intolerable you’d have walked months ago! So, now it’s time to make a list of all the ways your job is working for you. You can use the same prompts again to help you:
Your working conditions, including pay, hours and location
Your colleagues and management
The purpose of your job
The day to day tasks that fill your time
Anything else that leaps out.
For many people, their job suits them for practical reasons. It’s unfulfilling, but it pays the bills, or it’s convenient. What about you?
By completing both of these exercises, you can start to develop a picture of what’s keeping you here, and what a better scenario might look like, even if that’s still abstract.
For example, you might find your job dull, and your manager useless, but you like that you have an easy commute to work, and can complete your job easily without it weighing on your mind at home. Or you might love the purpose your role has, you’re doing something you really believe in, but the hours and working conditions are far too stressful, and it’s taking its toll on your health.
The key is to get specific about what’s working and what’s not in your situation right now. Once you look them in the eye you may find that the things that are holding you in the job aren’t as essential as you’d thought.
For example, yes, you need to earn a certain amount of money… but maybe there’s a way to cut back and take a pay drop temporarily while you retrain? Or yes, your job is easy and stress-free right now, but you’d take more responsibility and pressure to do work you really care about. Maybe neither of those are true for you. But it’s not until you get specific that possibilities start to appear.
What do you want?
Once you’ve assessed how you feel about your current work, it’s time to think about how you’d like things to be. What do you want from your working life?
If you don’t have a clear picture of what you’d like to be doing, it’s time to get creative. You’re going to create your vision. A fantastic way to start with this is with a vision board, either the old fashioned paper and scissors way, or digitally (Pinterest is great for this). A vision board is such a flexible tool: if you have a clear goal in mind, it can become a powerful focus reminding you of what you’re working towards. But, it’s also just as powerful if you’re figuring things out along the way.
A vision board is a visual representation of how you’d like to be or feel. You already have some of this information from the work you’ve just done.
So, now it’s time to get creative and seek out images that inspire you, and remind you of the things you want from your working life. These can be as abstract as you like, as it’s all completely personal. For example, you might associate the colour blue with calm, and have that in your vision board. Or you might add in fire, because you want to feel more passionate about your work again.
At this stage it’s all about following the feeling. Going with the essence of how you want to be and feel, without worrying about the practicalities of making it happen.
Your vision board can be a work in progress. Get it somewhere you see it everyday, and update it when new ideas arise.
Bring your vision to life now
Now I’m going to ask you to take a leap of faith. For the next two weeks I’d like you to approach your job as if it’s your vision board. So, going back to the colour example, if your vision board is awash with calming blue hues, go to work everyday for the next two weeks channelling zen and calm. If fire’s what you’re after, go in there full of passion for the good you can do.
Why am I asking you to try and make lemonade out of the sour lemons your work is serving you right now? For three reasons:
To get work that sits with your vision, you need to be aligned with that vision. By living as if it’s already happening, you’ll be getting closer to the work situation of your dreams, and ready to move into it when it shows up.
You may find untapped potential in your current work. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not encouraging you to make the best of a mediocre job that you can just about tolerate. Life’s too short for that! But, by being a calmer/more passionate/whatever you want to be person at work, people will respond in kind. You may find collaborators, or mentors who love what you have to offer and new opportunities show themselves.
If you’re playing your part, and living out how you want to be, it will become blindingly obvious which aspects of your job are barriers to that. All of this is important information in deciding your next steps.
Get ready for your new career in 2024 - just £555
If you take these steps, I promise you will get new insight into what you want from working life. But what then? How do you make it happen?
Career Radiance, my bespoke career coaching programme is how!
A 1:1 to set personalised goals for the programme
3 transformational coaching sessions focused on areas of your choice (see my six step coaching strategy) or a blend of practical coaching getting you CV and Interview ready
A 1:1 personalised development planning session to leave you ready for action.
Career Radiance is perfect for you if you:
Want a change but aren’t sure what, or how
Want a coach to have your back, listen, encourage and ask challenging questions
Are ready to do the work and start making changes to get closer to the life and work you want.
Just message me for a chat to see if Career Radiance is right for you.
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