Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter
In the first part of our journey, I wrote about a few steps you can take to explore and find a new career. Now, let’s discuss previous steps more deeply and can start taking action.
Often, when people start their own journey of career change, they start to become paralyzed. We live in a world where we don’t like to experience discomfort and need immediate results.
Changing a career requires patience, experimentation and research. It all starts with your dream. What dreams do you have for a new job? What you dream about is the impact you will have on others? Don’t think about practicality. Just imagine a minute and then go back to the world of possibility.
Su told me that when she was six, she dreamed of making beautiful things and 13 months later, she was a potter. Marc discusses with teens a way to stay connected with their feelings. Now he does social work with young people. Dream.
A shortcut is to redeploy your skills in an imaginative way. For example, as a former executive recruiter, I use my talents and experience as a career coach in a more satisfying way than I do in search. What are the things you are doing now that will allow you to take advantage of your experience?
Acknowledge your fears. If this is easy, you will now change your career. You don’t, and often one of the obstacles to this transition is multiple forms of fear – fear of making mistakes, fear of you possibly have to change your lifestyle, fear of what others will think of. Thousands of fears are in the way you are. To get you beyond fear, you need to roar to reduce fear.
Harriet and I talked regularly about her fears and what she said to her. It tells her that it’s crazy to think about doing something new. It tells her that she is a stupid woman because he considers another possibility. After all, everyone knows and likes where she works now. Her reputation is very high. She has the possibility of progress.
I often remind her that she just doesn’t like doing the work she is doing. It has nothing to do with the company she works for; it is about the work she does, and nothing can change the feeling of fear she is every morning.
Create some assumptions that work for you. Write down different ideas for the career and job that interest you. Make a long list of 10 to 100 possibilities and prioritize items in the list. Don’t worry about the length of the list or where the order items are located. They move positions as you learn more.
One person I worked with identified 63 possible careers they thought could be achieved. Like a diagnostic doctor, we clarified what it means to everyone who is attractive to him so that we can expand the list further.
Knowing that you have a lot of questions but don’t have an answer yet, start an information conversation with people on the list for the top five jobs. Create questions that show curiosity rather than certainty. Learn what it feels like to do with this job.
Sheila did five questions for everyone she met to understand the reality of work, not just let her imagination of work deceive her. She would ask for a 15-minute conversation, and she would ask them what a typical day would look like and let them go into more detail. She asked them about their love for the job and what they didn’t like. She wondered what they were surprised by the work so far and whether they had advice from someone they could talk to.
She talked to at least five people in each profession before excluding the option or continuing to explore it more deeply. At this stage, please feel happy with the idea that the choices are eliminated so that other choices can be improved.
Please note that you continue to have commonalities in work that are interested and not interested. Ask people to give advice on other possibilities while explaining what you are looking for in your next career. Others, especially those who know you, may see different possibilities than you.
Stay in touch with people you meet along the way and get them informed. Quick attention every four to six weeks is enough. You can use this as a way to ask them other questions and see if you think of other questions.
At this stage, you are exploring unknown areas (for you), and like any explorer, you may make wrong turns that will bring you back. You may need to borrow a compass because your GPS doesn’t work as usual. You may want to find a guide to help you on your journey, or mobilize other resources to take you to your destination.
In my next post, we will look at the next job of “Career Change Journey.”
Changes it must occur
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzl_yxzvehk
