Stock Take – What Is Important To You In Your Career & Life & WHY?
In our fast moving world and lives, most of us rarely stop and reflect. Instead we tend to stumble through life. Does this sound familiar?
However, if you are looking to change career, you now have a great opportunity to take stock, put some new stakes in the ground and re-evaluate some key areas of your life.
What better time than now to start focusing on getting your life and career into balance and working towards finding a job, career or work you love and creating the life you want?
What Needs To Change & WHY?
To get your career transition journey really moving, it is important to put some stakes in the ground to establish your current situation and find out where you are in various key aspects of your career and life. This will then help you to re-evaluate where you want to be and most importantly why and to prioritise what you want to address.
I often find that clients want to know ‘what job or career they could change to or how they could change job or career’ at this early stage. My answer is always the same, i.e. “The what and how will come if you trust, believe and follow the career navigation cycle process”.
At this stage the most important aspect is why you want to change. The why is your purpose and if your why is strong enough, this will be your call to action and what you do and how you achieve your change will follow. Understanding why and your purpose will help you to take control of your career and ‘become the architect of your own future’.
If you have never been fulfilled in your work, consider this excellent point which has been used by many famous thought leaders along the lines of “If you always do what you’ve always done you will always get what you always got”. This surely sums up perfectly what happens if you don’t change, doesn’t it?
The longer you have been in a job, industry or particular sector, the harder making the break is likely to be. You may be afraid of making changes, but not changing will have far worse consequences, if you don’t want “what you always got”. Also, the longer you leave your decision to change, the more frustrated you will become and this will impact on your life and those around you, especially your nearest and dearest at just the time you want their empathy and support.
I’m sure you don’t want any of these statements to be what becomes of you do you?
- You never realise your true potential
- You constantly wonder ‘what if’
- You become ever more frustrated and unhappy
- You settle for a life of compromise
- You never challenge yourself
- You accept your work is a means to an end
- You become a ‘wage slave’
The reality is that when you are unhappy in your work it can have many repercussions with the most severe affecting:
- Your health
- Your relationships
- Your social life
- Your outlook on life
How Important Is It To Love Your Job Or The Work You Do?
Confucius, Chinese Teacher, Editor, Politician, and Philosopher (551BC – 479BC) says “Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life”.
What a wonderful fulfilling statement. You may have never considered how important it is to love what you do. Now you are looking to re-evaluate what is important to you in your career and life and why, you have reason to do so. Everyone will have a different take on this. However, if you look at people who really do love what they do, most of them are more energised and they don’t even view what they do as work. Now is your opportunity to work towards achieving this same goal. How good would that feel? Great, I’m sure!
Sir David Attenborough the naturalist and broadcaster, is an extreme but brilliant example. A remarkable man, now 90 years young, is still working hard, including all sorts of challenging expeditions for TV shows and enjoying life. Why? Because he is passionate about his work and the Planet! I’m sure you know people like this and they are a joy to be around. This is why I developed my ‘mantra’, “You spend more waking hours at work than in any other activity. Life is too short, so why be unhappy? Take the leap of faith and do what you love.”
Some of my clients say “I don’t believe you can actually find work you love. How do people actually end up loving what they do?” There is no magic wand; there is no ‘holy grail’. You need to work through the process, which most people will never do. The answers will eventually evolve from following my Career Navigation Cycle process and reading my latest book Winning Through Career Change. You now have the opportunity to proactively manage your career to become the architect of your own future and create the life you want. I’m sure you’ll agree this sounds appealing, doesn’t it?
What Happens If You Do Change?
This is the 64,000 dollar question and it is likely to be transformational for you!
If you or someone you know are looking to change career and need some extra motivation and guidance to make it happen then my book ‘Winning Through Career Change‘ was written for you! You have just read extracts from Chapter 2 – It’s Time To Re-Evaluate. Is it time for you to re-evaluate your career?
Steve Preston is known as The Career Catalyst ®. A leading Career Coach to executives and professionals, the Career Coach’s Coach, MD of specialist Consultancy SMP Solutions (Career & People Development) Ltd, motivational speaker and Internationally acclaimed Author of Career and Personal Development books and products, including Portfolio Careers – How to Work for Passion, Pleasure & Profit, Winning through Career Change and Winning Through Redundancy
