Changing careers, doing a career pivot or making a career choice is a very exciting and scary process for most people. It is a big decision and one that you are likely to live with for many years.
If you just don’t know what career path to pursue or have chosen a career or occupation that no longer or has never been satisfying you are not alone. I believe there is nothing more important than feeling like you fit in your job, with your team and colleagues and in your company.
I view making a career choice, change or a pivot as a three step process, which I have outlined below. As you can see there are many questions to answer.
Letting me be your guide through the process will allow you to relax and focus on what is most important each step of the way, which is You. I will keep you moving forward, offering objective feedback and support so you can feel confident knowing you are in great hands with a caring coach that wants you to succeed.
STEP 1: WHO ARE YOU?
There are many ways to assess who you are from formal assessments, exercises, activities and discussion. Based on your needs and desires you may do one or more as part of this process.
How did you get where you are?
The first and most important to thing to do when you feel stuck or lost is to pause and consider where you are and what brought you here. What is your story? What has driven your decisions to date? How did you get where you are?
What are you struggling with?
The next step is to gain clarity and to articulate exactly which aspects of your life are causing you pain. Equally, what’s working well?
What are your personality preferences, skills, interests and strengths?
Understanding who you are and what best fits your personality preferences is essential for job satisfaction. Being good at something is not a good enough reason to continue to do it.
For example, I am quite skilled at accounting, yet that would not be a strength because I don’t really like doing accounting!
Strengths are activities we enjoy. We often feel drawn to them as they tend to leave us feeling energized and absorbed in what we’re doing. Understanding and recognizing our interests and strengths is important because they help to define when we are at our best.
So what are your interests and strengths? And more importantly, how can you translate them into a paying job or maybe starting a business?
What do you enjoy?
What a deceptively simple question. Enjoyment comes in so many forms, but one thing to differentiate is what you enjoy for its own sake (intrinsically) and what you enjoy because you feel you should enjoy it. I caution you to be careful of shoulding on yourself as often these are unrealistic expectations.
In addition, it’s useful to discriminate between things you enjoy because they move you in the direction of your values, and things you enjoy because they are a respite from things you don’t enjoy. There is a difference.
What are your values?
Career decision making is ultimately a process by which we must evaluate different options. At the heart of the word ‘evaluate’, is the word ‘value.’ We all have values that we live by, but values are most useful when we consciously define them as the principles (or directions) in life that are most important to us.
Determining your values helps define the type of life you want to lead and highlights the things that are truly important to you in your career.
What are your decision criteria?
Building self-awareness is not enough by itself to make a decision. To make good decisions we need to understand our decision criteria. These criteria can be anything – but it is rare that it is only money so you want to consider skills you wish to use and develop, work environment and roles that fit your personality and the values you wish to stand for in life.
Without being clear about your decision criteria you will leave the decision up to your mind – and your mind will generally favor the routine and familiar. In other words your mind will keep you stuck right where you are.
STEP 2: WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
The main problem with career pivots is most people immediately think in terms of jobs and viewing job postings or registering on a job board.
What is missing is creative consideration of alternative careers that are not advertised on the job boards. For example, I have worked with clients who created career portfolios, started their own business, became a day trader, worked consistently as a contractor through agencies or on their own, and developed their own job at major companies.
This stage is about generating ideas in line with what you want to do in life and navigating forward using your strengths and values. Career decision making is not only about choosing between options, but also thinking anew about our options now and into the future.
IDENTIFYING YOUR BEST DIRECTION LEADS TO SATISFACTION & SUCCESS
What motivates you?
This is where we discover the reasons why you work – from the rewards that you receive to the mission that you dedicate your time to.
In any career decision, you need to be clear about your purpose. Once you have that, what type of career and jobs fit that description?
What roles suit you?
Our working lives are a little like an acting role, but as any actor will tell you acting takes time and energy. The further away from our ‘true’ selves our role strays, the more energy it will take from us. Study after study shows that a feeling of identification with one’s work role leads to greater commitment, contentment, meaning, life satisfaction, lower depression, longer life and faster recovery from illness.
What we need to do is identify the working role (or roles) that suit you best and give you the most control and satisfaction.
What’s your purpose?
A purpose is an overarching goal that unifies and makes sense of other goals. However, we aren’t born with a life purpose, we must choose one. This involves starting from within and looking outwards towards the world, and asking ourselves – who will we serve? What do we believe and what causes are worth spending our lives on? How will we contribute to the world? How can we make a positive impact? What is our legacy?
Generating Career Options
If you think the way you always think, you’ll end up doing what you always do. That can be pretty boring and unsatisfying. Creative brainstorming is therefore essential to good career decision making. What did you dream of doing when you were little? What has your heart always secretly yearned to do? What would you do if you had 3 lives? Or if all jobs paid the same? The key is to generate as many options as possible.
Evaluating Options & Choosing Your Direction
I encourage clients to do research and evaluate the options from many perspectives. This is a key factor for this process and where working with me as your career counselor can really help you to make the best choice. What stands out? What can we now get rid of, and ‘let go’? Looking for patterns and themes within the results helps to narrow your options. You are now on the way to identifying your best direction, and getting unstuck.
STEP 3: HOW WILL YOU GET THERE?
Once you reach step 3 you have identified your best direction
This is sometimes where your mind will often pipe up and start derailing the process:
- You haven’t thought this through!
- There must be a better direction than this!
- You can’t change at your age!
- This is far too ambitious!
It’s easy to start doubting the decision and to defer action. While this decision may not be perfect, deferring the decision may not be helpful either. There comes a time when not making a decision begins to look like the decision and that can leave you stuck.
Taking action at this point is crucial because it’s very difficult to ‘think’ ourselves into a new career. Once you move into action, you gain a sense of momentum and meaning. And more often than not, you develop opportunities you could never have imagined when you were sitting and dreaming at your desk.
In moving forward into action we will focus on: 
- Determining your vision
- Choosing goals that will move you towards your vision
- Developing your 1, 2 and/or 3 year plan
- Identifying risks and resources
- How you will sell or brand yourself
- How you will deal with setbacks
As much as possible hold doubts lightly and develop the willingness to take action while maintaining a focus on your vision. Working together with me as your career coach, you will move forward in the direction of living your dreams.
Let me guide you in making the change or pivoting towards what you truly desire. See yourself in that new job or starting your own business. It can become real.
What are you waiting for? Lets get started so you can live your best life!
Contact Me at estelle@careeractioncenter.com or 831-601-6576
In individual sessions by Zoom or telephone I offer:
- Programs and hourly meetings and that can be customized to fit your individual needs.
- A partnership with you in developing and implementing a self-empowering plan for your career and your life!
- Guidance and support in all facets of the career choice, change and pivot process
- Follow through coaching
- On track accountability