5 steps to building a better career – for YOU
Did you fall into your current career? If you did, you’re certainly not alone.
Opportunities can handily present themselves at the right time and many people discover an accidental career can work brilliantly for them.
But over time, we might also outgrow a career that for many years has worked well for us. Times change, the economy changes and most importantly, we change.
And when that happens and we feel increasingly dissatisfied, out of place or disenchanted with our work, how can we go about exploring alternatives that fit the person we are today and provide the new rewards we’re seeking?
The truth is, that many people are re-evaluating their career.
The Covid pandemic has highlighted what no longer works and brought into focus the things that really matter.
If you’re ready to get clear about what you need to feel inspired and energized by a new career, these five ideas give you a great starting point.
1. Go deeper
Instead of allowing yourself to stagnate, job-hop or panic pivot, slow down and go deeper. This is the time to answer the big questions and start creating something that fits the real you.
Who are you?
It’s time to finally understand what your strengths are, what motivates you, what you value, what has purpose for you and the kind of life you want. Approach this systematically and gain a clear picture of the person you are today.
This is vital to rebuilding a better working life, so don’t skip it! It’s also the core of the CLARITY section of my career change programme and provides authentic foundations for an aligned new career.
What does success mean to you?
This is such an individual measure, so give yourself some time to reflect. Try answering this question in as many different ways as possible, but which are completely true for you:
I will feel successful when I ……
If you’d like to identify your personal measures of success, you can download a free guide here.
Until you can answer this question for yourself, you could well be heading in completely the wrong direction.
In reality you’re likely to be sleep-walking or actively steering towards some else’s idea of success – a parent, a teacher or a mentor who influenced previous choices.
It’s time to be very conscious of what you consider success and whether your current career is taking you there.
Download your free guide here
One life – but several versions of you
The clock is certainly ticking. We’ve all been reminded of our mortality in recent weeks and for many, this has been the trigger to take stock. You’re not the same person you were at 18, at 30, at 45, at 60.
It’s never too late to design a working life that suits you head and heart. As writer and researcher Brené Brown reminds us:
“There are penalties to leaving big pieces of your life unlived. You’re half way to dead. Get a move on.”
2. Be honest, be authentic
As soon as your eyes are open to what has guided your career choices to this point, you’re free to be open to what you really want from your life and your work.
Being honest with yourself can also be difficult. Perhaps you’ve invested in a great deal of training and have developed valuable experience, been promoted and achieved a certain lifestyle. It may look like success. But if this work is no longer fulfilling you or meeting your new criteria of success, you won’t be acting authentically, nor will it feel like success.
The easiest way to know if you’re expressing your true needs and desires is to be on the lookout for the word ‘should’. This word can point to someone else’s view of the world. When you can ditch the ‘shoulds’ and other people’s measures of success, you are charting a new authentic course.
The best guide you can have on this journey is clarity about your values. Ask ‘what matters most to me?’ and you will be starting to uncover your values. When you can align your values with your work, you’ll feel more truly yourself.
If you’d like to read more about values, try this article or my Values Discovery service.
3. Be daring & nourish your dreams
Despite the disruption, uncertainty and anxiety that Covid has brought in its wake, what have you actually enjoyed about life during lockdown? If you’re not sure, try this article to understand what this disruption has taught you.
Does your ideal life look slightly different than it did before the pandemic?
Sometimes we need an external nudge to start the journey to understanding our vision of an ideal life. When you know what you value, what you’d like to achieve and how you’d love to live, it’s much easier to build a route to your new world.
Give yourself a free rein to dream big. Be creative. Ignore the gremlins that point out the pitfalls even before the picture has shivered into focus.
And when you have that vision, capture it, create a vision board, a poster, a narrative to bring it to your attention every single day. When you lose focus, this will ground you to what matters most to you.
You can download my guide to creating your vision board here if you’d like one.
4. Don’t compare
My vision isn’t better than yours. It’s mine and it works to guide me towards a rich and fulfilling life. Yours can do the same for you.
But we all at some point fall into the trap of comparing our progress with other people we know. I’ve written about accidental comparisons here and suggested 20 techniques for building a more positive way of dealing with the slippery slope of comparison.
One of these is anchoring to your values – what you prize most highly.
Another is remembering that an external view of another life is just that – a surface impression, not the messy, lived reality of that life.
So as much as you can, be comfortable in your own skin, understand what matters to you and keep those comparison demons at bay.
5. Taking the unique you to the world
There is only one you.
If you’ve followed some of the ideas above, you’ll be starting to understand exactly what makes you unique and where your talents, values, experience and motivations could make a real difference.
So how can you present these to potential employers or clients?
Whether it’s in a redesigned CV, a tailored application, a revamped LinkedIn profile, website or marketing copy that shows the real you, you are now using your true voice to engage the world. By focusing on strengths, achievements, values, purpose, or many of the other aspects that make you who you are, you have the clarity to demonstrate your relevance and how well you fit future opportunities.
Trust who you are, engage authentically with people around you and you’ll attract the people who need your skills or services. By pretending, fudging it, or talking the talk while not walking the walk, you can’t hope to achieve fulfillment or success on your own terms.
When you do the kind of inner work I’ve suggested in this article you’ve taken an enormous step towards the life you really want. Until then, there’s a very real danger that you’re living the life you never remotely intended.
If you’d like to talk through any of these ideas or how you can make a start on a more authentic and personally rewarding working life, just drop me a message below. There’s still 6 months left of this surprising year, and you could take back control of the next chapter. I’d love to hear from you.