ATTENTION!
My fellow Gen X people in particular. Yup, YOU in your 40s or 50s.
Stop settling in your career.
You’ve been putting in the work for years.
The very things you want, someone else has. Not because they’re smarter or work harder or are more deserving. But because they decided what was important to them and then asked for it. Not because they believed they were simply entitled to it. But because they understood the value they brought to the table, and learned how to articulate it. They sold themselves on it first and then couldn’t help but communicate it.
If you don’t think you’re being at least a little unreasonable when asking for what you want your work to look like, we need to talk.
If you’re trying to leave behind what feels like a grind, maybe these are the words you didn’t know you needed to hear.
Design, build, test, learn
When it comes to career change, there are proven stages that you’ll need to navigate. Using the Stages of Change Theory, they’d go something like this (usually not in a tidy, linear order):
Not thinking about changing your career
Thinking about changing your career
Preparing to change your career
Taking action to change your career
Changing your career
Maintaining the career change
Please don’t confuse the fact that you want to change your career or that you’re thinking about it with preparing for it or taking action on it. This is a common thing I see.
I've already tried everything!
Folks sometimes tell me they’ve already tried everything to make changes and it just didn’t work. They believe something has gone wrong.
But when we dig a little deeper, what they’ve done is try to think of something that immediately feels like a better option than what they’re doing now.
Or, maybe there is something they’re really interested in but because they’re not certain it will work out or be better, they give up. So they thought about something, felt hopeful, and then did a google search. Now they believe the thing they are interested in won’t pay enough, or requires too much work, or that they’ll have to start from scratch.
Maybe after a quick search, they actually talked to somebody about their desire for change. Perhaps that person only confirmed their fears-that change is risky, or that they’d be better off staying where they are.
They’ll be convinced they have made a solid attempt at changing their career and it just didn’t work out.
Successful career change
Successful career change doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t happen only in your head or by just thinking about it. You don’t figure it all out and then just execute. You don’t find it by asking people who have never done it successfully or who have different values than you for their opinions about it.
Lots of action won’t guarantee a successful career change either. Because you might think about what you want, then create a plan, take a few steps, not see the change happen as smoothly or quickly as you like and then give up. You’ll think you just didn’t get it right.
Want to know how you get it right?
You need to design, then build, then test. Then you learn from that. This is what I help people do. You don’t just think about changing and you don’t just plan for change. You don’t just take a bunch of action. You need the right combination of all of these things.
It's the Learn part that most people miss. You don't design something, build it, test it and then scrap the whole thing if it doesn't work perfectly. You need to tweak! You need a way to learn from what seems like it's not working.
Also, while you’re doing these things you need a way to comfort the uncertainty and confusion that will come up. You need a way to make powerful decisions and find accurate, objective information. You need accountability and support to be able to keep going when you’re not getting results. AND not only from people who are feeling more uncertain and fearful than you are.
You have to test your assumptions and not just believe the well-meaning biases your friends, family, and even strangers will share with you.
This is how I help.
Cheering you on! Christine
I know something brought you here and maybe it was a search for what to do next about your career. There are a few ways I can help:
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