Career change for beginners

I found an old email yesterday, from three years ago, reminding me of how I started thinking through this whole career change idea (and it has taken a lot of thinking - a vital part of the process). The email was very simple. It was five questions to ask yourself, if you really don't know what else you could do for a living:

1. What activities do you enjoy?
2. What subjects do you love most?
3. What environments do you thrive in?
4. What are you naturally good at?
5. What's really important to you?

Not easy questions to answer. I suspect they came from one of the useful free resources I signed up for at that time, which I can recommend if you're even vaguely considering a change in direction. The first is a brilliant website called Careershifters which is full of free advice and success stories. It's run by experienced career changers and lots of career coaches, life coaches and similar inspirational types submit articles and advice. You can sign up for their regular newsletter and get a free top tips e-book. A lot of the authors also offer free newsletters and write very good blogs on a wide range of topics. My top site for beginner career changers.

What I did next was sign up for one of their London workshops, which then led me directly to the career coach company One Smart Step. At this point, having reapplied for my job, and realising I might be living on borrowed time at work, I invested in one-to-one career coaching with them. Four sessions with Sonia (read her blog Happy Mondays) led me to a much clearer idea of what I enjoy most about work and what I have to offer, a CV to be proud of, and a plan to put into action. And most of all, a newfound sense of confidence. Without Sonia I wouldn't have had the courage to take the leap of faith I did.

I realise not everyone will want to or be able to pay for one to one coaching. There is of course free advice from Nextstep, as I mentioned in an earlier post. It won't be as tailored to you and your particular situation but anyone is entitled to three free sessions a year, and you will get some useful tips. I've been lucky enough to meet several Nextstep advisors as part of my job, and all of them have been very knowledgeable.

It's great to know that there is a whole community of career changers out there, meaning no-one has to do this alone.

If you have to support yourself, you had better find some way that is going to be interesting.

Katharine Hepburn

Keeping motivated

I've had an encouraging response to the blog so far and would particularly like to thank the friends (?) who took such delight in taking literally my invitation to kick me into action. Those of you who told me you ate a frog as a result of last week's post - well done! I now have a copy of 'Eat That Frog' to read and am hoping for miracles (isn't that how these motivational books make so much money?)

Talking of motivation - I've heard it's common for energy levels to rise and dip dramatically during redundancy - I only wish that someone could tell me how long it lasts. Once I'd made my decision to accept voluntary redundancy, back in January, I couldn't wait to leave work and get on with all the stuff I had in mind, as part of the next chapter in my life. So I'm frustrated with my inability, now I have the time, to achieve anywhere near as much as I think I should be. There are some days I can get lots done and feel very positive; others when I can barely get started or even decide on what to do. I guess this may well have happened to me at work to some extent, but it's less noticeable when you know you're being paid to just get on with it no matter how you feel. For some reason, I can't do that for myself. It doesn't help when people naturally want to ask you, every time they speak to you, what jobs you've applied for recently, have you had any interviews, have you got a new job yet? No pressure then!

At this point I'd really like to hear from others who have been in the same situation and get some tips. In the meantime, I've found a favourite blog particularly helpful, it's called Bounce Back Cafe and recently they posted on what to do when you're stuck which I found gave me permission to stop beating myself up when defeated by the to-do list, and go off and do something else. Which is what I'm going to do right now, in the hope of a more motivated day tomorrow.

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.”
— Mary Anne Radmacher

Frogs for breakfast, lunch and dinner

I'm sure you've heard the phrase 'eat a frog for breakfast' by now. Google it - it's everywhere. Not sure who to attribute it to, but various sources suggested are Brian Tracy, author of Eat That Frog! to Mark Twain (surely he can't be responsible for all the quotes attributed to him on t'internet?) It's something my housemate is good at doing, and a philosophy I've used at work before now. Namely - That Task on your to-do list, the one you've been dreading, the one you would put off forever, the one that popped into your mind this morning when you woke up and your heart sank - do it straight away. Apparently it does wonders for your motivation and your effectiveness.

I've just got back from a very useful session with a Nextstep advisor, who very rightly diagnosed me with a severe case of the procrastination bug. I know what I need to do. I have the contacts, I have the tools, I have the time. I just don't want to do any of it. My entire to-do list consists of ugly, revolting frogs. (Why it's so difficult for me to do it will possibly be the topic of the next blog post - working title, Networking for Introverts.)

Solutions? Get someone to give you a good kick up the backside. Volunteers, please form an orderly queue at the front door. Give yourself a treat after each frog - to continue the metaphor, wash it down with something more palatable. That's all I have so far but I am open to suggestions - especially if any of you, my lovely readers, have actually read one of those 'how to get things done' type books and have other tips to share?

And the teddy bear lived happily ever after

Another piece of good news. The sad teddy bear in the picture on my first post is no longer in the window. I like to think he was bought and taken home to be loved by a child, and is now living his happy ending.

'Redundant' is such an ugly word

The word 'redundant' has to be one of the English language's most negative words. There is no happy context for it that I can find, it always simply boils down to 'not needed'. No wonder we fear it. No one wants to think of themselves as 'superfluous to requirement'. I fought with myself over including it in the title of my blog, but given that's the subject, how else would you know what I was blogging about? I've done my best to give it a positive spin, but am still not all that happy with it. It's supposed to suggest a choice, an opportunity, but could, I realise, suggest some sort of professional suicide attempt.

But here's the good news. You are not redundant. I am not redundant. There is no such thing as a redundant person. The most useful thing I did last week was attend a workshop at my local library on uncovering the hidden job market (I may blog about that later), and as we introduced ourselves, the man next to me said 'I was made redundant' - then corrected himself to 'my post was made redundant, not me'. It seems to me to be very important that we each take time to word that right, whether to others, or to ourselves. It will affect our feelings of success or failure, and our motivation to pick ourselves up and try something new.

So here's my action for this blog, which I would encourage you to do too: think about what makes you unique? There is only one you, and no-one else can be you as well as you can. Yes it's a cliche but please don't shrug it off - there is more to each person breathing on this planet that what they do for a living, and in this culture, which is so obsessed with work, we need to remind ourselves of that from time to time.

And the last word goes to Audrey Hepburn:
“People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.”