Why your skills & strengths shouldn’t be the focus at the start of your career change

Many people exploring a career change might start by considering what they’re really good at to help inform their next chapter. It’s a really logical first step and in the absence of any further clarity, is something tangible to hold onto in the midst of confusion.

Knowing what you’re good at enables you to communicate your value to others, it helps to boost your confidence and can provide you with some further clarity as to the type of role you might want to pursue that enables you to use these strengths.

It’s certainly an area that I support my clients to dive into during our work together to help create a full picture of who they are and to support them as they generate new options and possibilities. However, there’s a number of reasons why it’s never the starting point as it can really slow your progress and limit your options.

You can’t see your own skills & strengths

Whether you are changing career due to redundancy, change of life circumstances or through your own sense of dissatisfaction and unfulfillment, often navigating this transition can be challenging and we may not have the best view of ourselves in this season. Many of the clients I work with resonate with feelings of imposter syndrome, lack of confidence and struggle to recognise all of the things that they’re great at and the value they have to offer. Because of this, it’s difficult to accurately and objectively assess where your key skills and strengths lie. So, to allow this perception to inform your career choices isn’t a helpful starting point and can steer you in the wrong direction.

You stay in ‘default mode’

By basing your next career move on the skills and strengths you’ve acquired from previous roles, this can cause you to stay in ‘default mode’. You look at the things you’ve done before and research roles that involve a similar skill set. The problem with this approach is that this assumes that you’re happy about the previous career choices you have made and doesn’t create the space and opportunity to completely ‘rethink’ your career options with a blank canvas.

It also doesn’t encourage you to ask the question, ‘Did I enjoy using and developing this skill’? We understandably tend to hone and develop the skills necessitated by the role you fulfil and the work involved. I’ve had many conversations with clients who identified that they have a mix of creative and strategic skills but the career choices they had made didn’t facilitate as much development of the creative side and many years later wish that had been something they’d created more opportunities for. So, when it comes the right time to explore this in greater detail, it’s important to look at both what you’re good at and enjoy, because those things don’t always necessarily align.

You limit your options

If you solely focus on what you’re good at to filter down your options, you might end up disregarding something that could be a great fit for you based purely on a scarcity mindset, because you don’t yet have all of the necessary skills to do it. You do yourself a real injustice by talking yourself out of the running for an opportunity before you’ve fully explored and considered it.

Here are some suggestions of what you could do instead:

1. Give yourself permission to explore this journey with openness and not restriction. As much as possible, park your past for now and embrace the opportunity to completely rethink and reimagine what your working life could look like. Be curious and inquisitive and start with a ‘blank canvas’ approach.

2. Follow a proven and recognised step by step approach to navigating career change that enables you to look at all relevant aspects (including your skills and strengths) at the most ideal time. You can read about those steps described in my blog here or book onto one of my FREE Monthly Workshops where I’ll lead you through the exact steps in detail.

3. Instead of ‘I can’t do that’, what would happen if you started to apply the thought, ‘I’d like to be able to do that and want to figure out how.’?

It’s understandable if it feels unsettling to apply a counterintuitive approach to career change. Awareness of your skills and strengths can help fill in a significant part of the puzzle when it comes to navigating this journey and figuring out what comes next. However, it’s important to consider all aspects to help you build a clearer picture for your future and to expand the scope of possibilities before filtering them down at a later stage.

If you would like professional guidance and in-depth support in figuring out what you want from your next career move to go from confusion to clarity, from overwhelm to action and to pursue your new career with confidence, then book in for a completely free strategy session to explore the support options available.

We’ll identify where you want to get to in your career, we’ll dive into what’s going on for you right now, what is and isn’t working and we’ll identify the challenges and obstacles that are preventing you from making more progress, so you can put in place a plan of action to move forwards.

If you want this to be the year when you finally get to do work that really matters to you and you’re ready to make a change, do book in for a completely free chat to figure out your next steps.