Tag Archives for " goal setting "

How to make great career choices

By Felicity Dwyer | Career change

At this time of year, we tend to focus on our goals and future direction. We may feel motivated to make choices about where to go next in our careers and working lives.

Do you want to stay with your existing company or look for another employer? Is it time for a complete change of career, or to make the leap into self-employment?

Maybe you want to downshift to experience the lifestyle you really want, or aim for a promotion with more responsibility and financial rewards.

When you can’t make a decision

The range of choices available to us means that we can get stuck between different options. Sometimes we don’t know what would be the best step and it is easier not to make a change at all.

If you find yourself in this position, there are various methods that you can use to help you make great career choices. Here are some approaches that I have used successfully at various times in my life.

Advantages and Drawbacks

This is where you write down the pros and cons of each choice. This is simple but can be very effective. A good method is is to set up a page with three columns headed Advantages/Drawbacks/Interesting. Then brainstorm every aspect of your choice. The interesting column allows you to capture thoughts that arise during your brainstorm that are not either a pro or a con.

Do this for each of your choices, and see if clarity emerges as you look at your lists. It is important to write everything down in this exercise, as this gets the thoughts out of your head and onto paper, where you can assess them more rationally. Sometimes a small risk can feel out of proportion when it’s just a worry whirling around your head.

Weighing up choices

The second method is more intuitive, but can be effective when you are deciding between two options. Sit down and get relaxed. Hold your hands out in front of you, palms up and imagine that you are holding one choice in each hand.

Feel you choices as if there are things that you are weighing them up, one in each hand. Does one choice feel heavier and the other choice lighter? This can be a way of tapping into your intuition and generally the lighter choice is better.

Another way of tapping into your intuition is to ask yourself a question about the choice just before you go to sleep. Trust that your subconscious will work on the answer while you sleep, and the answer will be clear to you when you awaken.

Possible futures

This is a great method if you are someone who finds it easy to visualise. In this method you mentally project yourself into the future, and imagine how it would feel to inhabit two or more possible futures.

This exercise works well if you stand in a room or outside someone quiet, and imagine your future self standing several paces in front of where you are now. For each choice, see your future self in a different spot in front of you.

Then taking each option in turn, walk to the spot you have imagined for your future self and look back at yourself. What is your life like now? What does it feel like to have taken this option? Then walk back to your present self and take some notes.

Have a bit of a shake out, and then repeat the exercise by walk to the other future you, and imagine what that would be like. Make the picture as vivid as you can. Then walk back to the present and make notes.

Committing to a decision

Once you have a made a choice, then it is much more likely to be successful for you if you commit fully to it. I love the late Susan Jeffers’ “no lose decision making” model from her book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Jeffers explains how we waste valuable energy in fearing that we’ve made the “wrong decision.” Instead of spending time thinking about how other options for our lives could have worked out, we can instead see each choice as a positive path towards “goodies” in our lives and always be focusing forwards. This doesn’t mean that we don’t continually review, adapt and adjust our path in life and work. But’s so much more productive to make a clear decision and then stay focused on moving forward, rather than pondering on what might have been.

What choices will you make this year about your life?

How to turn your career vision into reality

By Felicity Dwyer | Career change , Motivation , Small Business

A first step in making a career change is to work out where you want to get to.  This is true whether you want to land your dream job, or want to start or grow your own business. But this may not be enough, on it’s own.

Create a vision of your future

Creating a vision is an important step towards your ideal future. It’s worth taking time to work out what you really really want. Sometimes that clarity can be enough to set you on the path to success.

But sometimes, identifying an ambitious goal can spark a sense of overwhelm. The gap between where you want to be and where you are now seems huge. How will you bridge the chasm?

Assess your current reality

The answer is to start with an objective assessment of where you are now. A vision of a desired future is an important element to achieving goals and can provide the pull to get you going. But it’s not enough on its own. You have to find the motivation to take action.

In her book “Rethinking Positive Thinking”, psychologist Garbriele Oettingen shares her research that indicates positive visualisation on it’s own can actually reduce your chances of success. You may feel so psychologically buoyed up by your happy thoughts that you lack the sense of urgency or internal motivation needed to actually do the work needed.

She suggests that once you have identified your end goal, you then actually face up to and imagine the reality of the obstacles or the internal stuggle that you will face along the way. Research shows that “mental contrasting” between your goal and the current situations will make it more likely that you will achieve what you want.

Creative tension leads to action

In “The Path of Least Resistance”, Robert Fritz differentiates between people who just dream about or imagine their desired future, and the creators who take action to turn their vision into reality. The gap between the vision of your dream job and the reality of what you have now provides the structural tension needed to take action.

So you need to be clear about where you are now, and what are the steps you need to take right now to move towards your goal. It doesn’t matter how small your first step is – the important thing is that you take it. And you need to be aware of what might get in the way, for example fear of rejection or the distractions of social media. Then make a plan for how you will move past this obstacle if it comes up. And then you take action. And then you take a next step. Build in some time for reflection, learning and planning after each step.

For example, if you want to write a book, it’s one thing to imagine your successful book launch, and all the wonderful ideas that you will be sharing. But you also need to consider what might get in the way of you sitting down day after day to get your words on paper. And then identify some specific strategies to help you overcome the resistance, moments of self-doubt and procrastination that hit almost every successful author along the way

Small steps up a mountain

Another example, if you’re considering self-employment after 30 years in corporate life, there may seem as though there’s a mountain to climb in terms of learning. But there are plenty of people who were in this position a few years ago. So a small step could just be to have a conversation with one or two of them.

You could book into a small business networking meeting, chat to a few people and find out what they do. Or if you feel nervous at the thought, overcome this by taking an even smaller step. You could contact the leader of a local networking group leader for a chat. They will soon let you know if pre-start ups are welcome at their events, and how to make the most of your visit.

Look back and celebrate

A final thought. It can be helpful to look back on goals you have achieved, and celebrate the steps you took that led you to where you are now. Remind yourself that goals are great, but action is awesome. You can do this!

Why you need a mentor

By Felicity Dwyer | Career development , Networking

Do you have access to someone who has experience in your field of work, and who is happy to give you some help to develop yourself and your career? In other words, do you have a mentor?

A mentor can support your career progression. A good mentor will see potential in you that you may not be able to recognise, and help you to make your ambitions a reality.

Research from the CIPD ⁽¹⁾ demonstrated that mentoring can be very effective in helping us gain knowledge, increase skills and act more effectively. It can lead to better management of career goals, and helps with developing a wider network of influence. And being mentored can increase confidence and self-awareness which leads to better performance at work.

A mentor would normally be someone in the same line of work as you, so they can offer you guidance based on experience. They can also help you to access networks and opportunities. A good mentor may also coach you where needed, helping you to clarify your own ideas for a way forward.

How can you find a mentor?

There are various ways to find a mentor or mentors. Some employers can help set up formal mentoring arrangements, so it’s worth asking about opportunities. Sometimes a manager can also act as a mentor. By which I mean they can help us to grow professionally and often personally, beyond the demands of our current job. I experienced this from one of my managers. Janet was an expert at developing her staff. She was willing to delegate and trusted me to take on extra responsibilities and to represent her sometimes at events. She also encouraged me to work towards a qualification which proved invaluable in my later career.

Sometimes a mentor is someone outside the management structure. Someone we meet and connect with in the workplace, who teaches or inspires us. When I first met Maggie, she was a wonderful role model and helped me discover a career direction that finally felt right. Maggie was hugely encouraging, she could see potential in me and helped me develop it. And a few years down the line, we ended up working closely together.

Sometimes you might look for a mentor externally to your organisation, particularly if you want to change direction. You may be able to find a mentor by asking within your professional and social networks. There are also individuals who offer paid mentoring services.

We all need mentors, even if they are only informal ones. And we need different people at different times or in different areas of our lives. Sometimes a simple conversation over coffee can prompt a change, and that is all the support we need at the time. Sometimes we might need a lot more in the way of handholding and be willing to invest in a professional mentor or coach.

The value of being a mentor

When you have established some success in your career or business, it might be time to look at giving something back and offering some of your own time as a mentor. This can be very rewarding. The CIPD research shows mentors also benefit from the satisfaction of developing their colleagues and from passing on their knowledge, skills and expertise. And it can help develop your skills too. Sometimes it’s only by sharing what we know that we can hold a mirror up to ourselves and recognise the depth of our own knowledge and skill. And mentors can also learn from mentees, from their questions and perspectives.

Have you been inspired by a mentor? Or are you a mentor? Please share your experiences in the comments box.

(1) CIPD Learning and development survey 2008.

 

4 questions to help you reflect on and celebrate your work

By Felicity Dwyer | Career change , Career development , Motivation

This time of year is one for reflection and celebration. It offers a natural pause point, and is a good time to reflect on your career and review the past year.

It’s natural to think about the future and to set goals as we go forward into the new year. But before we forge ahead with goal setting, it is valuable to take time to appreciate and learn from what has gone before.

Appreciative questions

In reflecting on this year, you might like to ask yourself these questions:

What am I grateful for in my work?

What achievements would I like to celebrate?

What have I learned this year?

What would I like to take forward into 2015?

These questions provide a positive base for assessing where you are now, and from which to move forward. The next step is to think about what you would like to be different next year, and what goals you would like to set yourself for the coming twelve months.

I’d love to hear your answers to one or more of these questions, please share in the comments box below.

Sharing success

In thinking about my year, I feel grateful to have discovered a coaching niche where I both find the work itself incredibly interesting, and which has a positive impact on the lives of my wonderful clients, along with opportunities to celebrate their success.

This lovely email arrived on my last full working day of the year. One of my career coaching clients had just been offered a fantastic new job, and wrote…

“I’m massively excited about the role and think it offers me a chance to really develop my experience in a number of areas, while also just being genuinely exciting in and of itself! …without your help and support I don’t think I would have been able to identify so clearly what the right kind of next step would be for me at this point in my career, or even that the time was right to move on. I also just love the poetry of having had the interview the day after my last coaching session!”

Joy in work

There is joy to be found when we discover the work that is right for us, and which feels both interesting and worthwhile.

I wish you joy, success and fulfilment at work.