So, you are feeling frustrated and you are considering changing your job.
A new perspective on strengths and weaknesses.
Explore your strengths and weaknesses from the perspective of what skills, subjects, activities give you energy and have you feeling stronger? Conversely, which skills, subjects, activities drain you and have you feeling weaker? This is a more practical way to think about your strengths and weaknesses and may give you a nudge in the direction of what new role might suit you or why you are not enjoying your current role.
Ask yourself:
What are you curious about learning more about?
What skill or discipline would you love to become masterful in?
What sparks joy or passion in you?
Learn to trust your gut.
We have an internal compass designed to help us navigate life’s many forked roads. Unfortunately, most of us have become disconnected from it. Our internal nervous system is continually sending us messages of safety and danger. When we become more attuned to what our autonomic nervous system is telling us, we tap into an internal resource that can accurately identify which relationships and working contexts serve us and which don’t.
Ask yourself:
What is my gut telling me about my current role?
Is my gut telling me to stay or leave this role?
If I were to prioritise my own wants and needs in this current situation what would be the natural choice?
Invest in yourself.
Invest in a career coach that has been recommended by someone who knows you well. The mind is mercurial, prone to overthinking and self-doubt. Human’s need help to get to the nitty gritty of what really matters to them and how they will spend “this one wild, precious life”. (Mary Oliver)
Maybe your job isn’t the problem.
When I worked in recruitment, I witnessed miserable IT programmers who became miserable project managers who then went on to become miserable programme managers. Our emotions are contagious, and they affect the mental and physical health of everyone around us. It’s helps to understand that emotions fuel all behaviour. The decisions we make when you are caught up in shame, guilt, overwhelm grief etc are unlikely to lead to healthy fulfilling choices. Ask yourself:
What are my racket feelings - the 3 familiar emotions that come up for you when you are triggered? Learn to listen to them, name and tame them and process them instead of offloading them onto your colleagues or loved ones.
Sometimes we need to know what’s hurting before we decide what to needs to change.
Educate yourself.
“When we know better, we do better” Maya Angelou
Speak to someone in the job you are interested in. I have found most people very eager to help when asked.
The Fire starter Sessions, – Danielle Laporte
The Desire Map, Danielle Laporte
Shine Gavin Oates
Podcast Diary of a CEO
Podcast Unlocking Us. Brené Brown
Navigating Uncertainty - Figure out the nuts and bolts.
Choosing a new career or considering transitioning from one career to another is risky and humans don’t like uncertainty. Make a budget and figure out how long you are willing to give this process. Do your research and do your best to make as much of what is unknown, known. You may want to consider a side hustle to see if your idea is financially viable without risking the family house. Do your research, explore the market, then take a calculated risk.
Know Thyself – Do your inner work
It’s hard to find the time, the money and to keep the myriad of different demands at bay long enough to consider what you want to do to earn a good living? I encourage you to find the time and the money and to put fire walls in place to create the precious space required in life to do your inner work. Find a coach, go on retreat, go away without your family or fake your own death if that is what it will take. The alternative is facing the brutal truth of the unlived, unloved life that will greet us when our time is up.
“Wide Open I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise”. Dawn Markova