Career Change: A Glittering Invitation To The Emotional StalkersWritten by Patricia Soldati
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Car? Mortgage? Health insurance? All of these are completely valid issues. But as long as you are still drawing a paycheck, worrying about financial ruin is completely self-defeating. Spend your energy constructively, working math in a deliberate way and letting results dictate your path – not your fear. Once I “got” this wisdom, I scratched out budgets like a miser obsessed. The results weren’t ideal, but they weren’t devastating either. After chopping expenses and eliminating debt, my savings would support me for 11 months. I wanted a minimum of 24 months of cushion to cover a ramp up period to get my coaching business off ground. Closing gap meant staying put until next year’s bonus was paid -– 10 months away! This placed my escape squarely at 20 months from start to finish, longer than I had anticipated, but at least I had a solid target in my gun site. My exit had become a question of “when” not “if”. Stalker #4: The Mush Factor. Lack of confidence is subtlest form of exit sabotage, but just as lethal as its three stalker-friends. It creeps up, scores, and then evaporates like soft mist. Just when you’re ready to take on world, it attacks again, melting you into a puddle of doubts about your ability to even come close to career change. When you feel vulnerable, think about bounty you’ve gained from your corporate run -– sharp-as-a-tack analytical skills, business acumen, process know-how, leadership, and solid technical expertise -– law, accounting, finance, organizational and human development, marketing, sales – list is as long and as rich as Rapunzel’s hair. These attributes fueled your corporate career; they will do no less for you now. That said, perfect confidence all time is not realistic either. Emotional wobbles go with territory. To steady yourself, remember that your journey is one of choice, not force. You control it from beginning to end –- pace, how it unfolds and when. When level of uncertainty feels too great, accept it. It will pass. When it does, pick up reins again. Work with your flow of energy, not against it. Before you know it, you will have conceived a plan and a financial strategy that will feed your confidence -- not suck it dry. Mastering your fate means rolling up your oxford sleeves and plowing through lots of rocky terrain. It means caging four stalkers into submission -- once, twice –- as often as it takes to open space for thoughtful career-change work. In fact, get to know these stalkers well. Even thank them for their guidance -- and remind them that you’re boss now -- and you’re getting ready to take on decisions around your future.
Patricia Soldati is a former President & COO of a national finance organization who re-invented her working life in 1999. As a career change specialist, she uses business savvy, coaching skills and “possibility thinking” to guide burned out corporate professionals into soul-satisfying work, safely and smartly. For 5 complimentary Career Change Lessons, visit www.findworkyouloveandthrive.com/catlibrary/5lessonslandpage.html
| | 6 STEPS TO RE-INVENTING YOUR CAREERWritten by Patricia Soldati
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4. Crafting Your Transition Plan. Out of your testing comes a clear path – where you can set a specific new career goal and create strategy and steps that will get you there. Your goal may be radically different work, same work in a different environment or starting a new business or some combination of these three. 5. Implementation. During Implementation phase – which can begin even before you leave your current employer -- you begin to put pieces of your transition plan into action. You may begin a course of study, reduce your expenses, if warranted, and/or even make physical preparations such as relocation or building a home office. Of course, to minimize your personal and financial risk, you want to do as much as possible while you are still working. 6. Integration. Seekers often think that once shift is made, their career transition is complete. I think it’s more accurate to call it “beginning of end”. A physical transition into new work is one thing – but transitioning your “underneath” layers (like work patterns, assumptions) is another thing entirely. Career change typically takes from one to three years. And tendency is to just ‘jump in’ anywhere. It helps to have a big picture view and to know that there actually is real method to madness!
Patricia Soldati is a former President & COO of a national finance organization who re-invented her working life in 1999. As a career change specialist, she uses business savvy, coaching skills and "possibility thinking” to guide burned out corporate professionals into soul-satisfying work, safely and smartly. For 5 complimentary career change lessons, visit www.findworkyouloveandthrive.com/catlibrary/5lessonslandpage.html
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