Finding Work You Love
The past year has been quite a whirlwind for us all and as things now seem to be heading in a more positive direction, for many of us this signals an opportunity for a reset. The enforced pause that lock down life brought might have prompted you to reflect on what you really want for your future. As we begin to emerge from lockdown life, it can be a good time to take stock and think about a fresh start.
Many of us aren’t in the same position we were this time last year. Collectively, we’ve faced redundancy, industry collapse, furlough, a complete change of heart, or perhaps a new business idea we can’t wait to get started on. Sometimes a change comes from external factors – maybe your boss wasn’t as accommodating as you needed during lockdown, and your motivation to work for them has drifted. Maybe you valued the opportunity to see more of your family and it caused you to realise that you want a healthier work life balance. Maybe you’ve been wanting a change for a while and this is the perfect time for it.
Whatever your reason, you might have concluded it’s time for a change but you’re asking ‘how do I go about that change?, ‘where do I start?’’ Knowing you want change is one thing, knowing what to do about it is another entirely!
I’m a qualified Life & Career Change Coach and I work with professionals to support and guide them through career change. I provide 1:1 and group coaching as well as online workshops to make navigating your options as accessible as possible.
I know getting started on a new journey is daunting. I retrained as a Coach after a 12 year career in the Charity Sector and having qualified as an Occupational Therapist working in the NHS. I remember the fear of stepping out of my comfort zone into the complete unknown; could I be sure this was the right career choice for me? Would it give me the lifestyle and time with my family I wanted? Deep down, I knew this was the right move, but any change of direction will let doubt creep in. So, it’s for this reason I want to provide you with the exact framework I lead my 1:1 clients through when supporting them through this season of change and transition.
As a former Occupational Therapist and having worked across a range of HR & Operational roles, I’m super practical, so I want to offer you the steps you need to work through to help you start the year off knowing how to begin this process of career change.
Step 1. Assess - the first place to start with making big career decisions is to carry out an assessment of what is and isn’t working in your current set-up. This enables you to move forwards from an informed position, knowing what you need from your next career move. You can access my FREE Career Audit tool that will help you with this.
Step 2. Explore - next, you need to spend some time uncovering what really matters to you in your work. You might want to identify your values, strengths and passions to build up a really clear picture of what you need from your next career move. By uncovering your career values, you’ll get clear on who you are at your core and what’s most important to you in your work. Our values inform our actions, decisions and behaviours, so they play an important part in this career change journey. Often, clients come to me when something doesn’t feel right in their professional lives. They might not be able to put their finger on it but often it’s the case that their work doesn’t enable them to express their values and this creates a sense of dissatisfaction and lack of fulfilment.
Step 3. Dream - Here, you generate a range of potential career options to research further. You’ll explore the pros and cons and reflect on the day to day reality of pursuing these opportunities. By overlaying the insights gained from the discovery stage against these options, you can filter them down into those that offer the very best potential fit, so you use your time and energy in a pro-active way to pursue the right opportunities.
Step 4. Discover - Finally, with a clear sense of direction about your next career move, knowing exactly what you want, this is where you pull all of that learning together and carve out a step by step action plan for the coming months. You’ll want to identify what you need to do in order to get from where you are now to where you want to be in pursuit of your chosen career. Some of the things you might like to consider could include: reworking your CV, updating your LinkedIn profile, reaching out to your contacts & networks, researching companies of particular interest to you, carrying out interview prep, researching further training etc.
Of course, making a significant change in our professional lives isn’t just about the practicalities. Strategy and mindset go hand in hand for creating success. Our confidence and mindset massively affect how to approach change, and success is more likely if we approach it with the frame of mind that will encourage us to pursue the right actions.
I know some people will get this far and think, ‘I’d love to do something new, but I can’t just give up work and change careers, it’s not practical’, and that’s a valid response, but I want to encourage you to allow yourself to think a step or two beyond this. Instead of writing off potential futures, why not spend just an hour or two exploring your options? You’re not committing yourself to anything but you are allowing yourself the opportunity to reflect.
We spend so much of our lives working, it’s important we give our time and energy to doing work we love.
If you choose to follow your dreams and find out more about that idea you have, then you’ll have the beginnings of an action plan to start your journey, even if you’re not sure what that might look like yet.
If you’d like further support with your career change journey, you can book in for a completely free strategy session to explore the support options available.
Wishing you every success!
