Career change and reinvention
Five choices that can shape a transition
I write here about five choices that have shaped my own mid-career reinvention(s). Not the only choices one may face. Yet consistent enough for me that I now use this list as a reminder when facing a new transition.
Maybe some of them can be helpful for you, as well.
1. Motivated by bold courage and big dreams? Not always at the start. Courage sometimes follows reaching the bottom of something and realizing it is a choice of change or to give-up on yourself.
- Choice #1 Actually, my first pivotal choice was often to clearly decide to stop doing the things that were not working for me. Stop, full stop at what seemed like all costs at the time. And find a different way forward, no matter what.
- Perhaps here’s where the courage comes in. Or maybe it’s blind faith in yourself and life. Or it was more simple: I was too darned tired to know exactly how to change or what I wanted to change. In fact, I’d been too busy – even overwhelmed – in my old world to have looked openly for a new one. So. Call it a sabbatical, a break, a burn-out, quitting my job, being forced to an ending, as you will. It was time to simply stop.
2. Small steps, collected. The thing about making a big change is, ironically, that sometimes the best you can do is find the very small steps first.
- I knew I needed a plan, but didn’t yet have enough insight or clarity about my new direction. So I started saying every day, “Just do the next thing you see in front of you.” Sometimes that was a phone call or reading an article or brainstorming ideas in my journal. What might I want a sabbatical to look like? What did I know now, if anything, about my next career step? (I knew more than I originally thought – a lot was about better using my strengths and operating in a way that fit my values.)
- Choice #2. Many little steps proved cumulative in a big positive way. I learned to trust them.
3. Disappointment = when your best idea turns on you. Even when following an idea with high hopes an optimism, sometimes we are left with an option “ruled out,” but nothing yet “ruled in.” Are you lost in no-where-land forever?
- Choice #3. Adopted a “toughen-up kid” attitude when dealing with disappointment: accepted the frustration of still not knowing what to do when a good idea proved not so perfect. “Next!” I decided this process was necessary and productive in the long run, even though I didn’t always enjoy it. “Remember, take the next step in front of you!” No wallowing.
4. Floating to build stamina. I didn’t realize how long I would need to simply physically recover from the stress of decisions and life’s unexpected twists and turns
- Choice #4. Letting yourself float has its value. The best option often eventually evolved towards the end of a longer exploration, rarely at the beginning and surely not exactly what I ever predicted. Note: Even now, I often underestimate the time I need to “clear my head” when I’m tired. I should always take my own impatient estimate of time and multiply it by two! Until I physically rest, I cannot as effectively explore my options.
- Change experts also say that staying “in transition” has the benefit of keeping you open to creative options you will not consider once you have chosen a direction and path.
5. Allowing goals to follow understanding my emotional “non-negotiables” and positive wishes
- Choice #5. I accepted my emotions as a barometer of my professional dreams, not only of my personal life. Trusted them to recharge my creativity and inspiration for the long-term.
- Before my own mid-life career change, I tended to write goals the way we are taught in business. Simple, measurable like “Exercise three times a week.” “Read one book a month.” “Finally plant my garden with perennials.” With career change, I began writing more principle-based, qualitative goals that included emotion about what I would be willing to compromise and what not.
- I ended up with a list of what a My Great Career would look like to me. (I later turned this into one of the most popular exercises in Modern Careers, btw.)
At the bottom line of my professional changes, I have gained a great deal of confidence and faith in taking little steps. And thereby in my ability to sort out messes I felt I had made of my career and life (or that life had made of me).
