You know you need to change your career when …

1. You fantasize about working in a tollbooth on the M50.
2. The highlights of the day are tea breaks and lunchtime.
3. You know you have said all this before but you can’t remember when.
4. You keep ringing the talking clock because you know the clock at work is slow by a few hours.
5. You go to work and when you return home you have no memory of what happened in between.
6. You wonder what the new person at work is so enthusiastic about.
7. You volunteer to do the photocopying for everyone.
8. You wish your customers would leave you alone … they always seem to want something.
9. You pretend to be on the dole when people ask you what you do.
10. You create a calendar that shows how many days you have until retirement.
11. You mark off each day on your calendar with a big black marker.
12. You wonder idly what it would be like to spend time in Mountjoy … and speculate that it really couldn’t be much worse than this job.
13. You offer to swap jobs with the cleaning staff.
14. You begin to think about beginning to smoke … at least it gets you out of the office.
15. You wonder why all the stupid people of the universe congregate in your office.
16. You spend all week thinking about the weekend and spend most of Sunday dreading going to work.
17. You consider going to the zoo and hiring a monkey to do your job … you doubt if anyone would notice the difference.
18. You wonder what sort of deeds you committed in a past life to get saddled with your job, colleagues and boss…and speculate that you were probably Attila the Hun.
19. You have rung in sick with so many excuses that you are rapidly running out of dead relations and illnesses. You have already tried the Ebola virus and bird flu.

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You have just had another crap day at work. Some of these indicators may be familiar to you! You are tired and you wonder what went wrong. Everyone told you (family, friends, neighbours, the guy on the toll bridge) that this was a great job with great prospects. Now, you are just tired of it. Tired of the politics, the changing requirements, tired of your boss who always seems to be changing the goal posts?  You want to change careers not just change job. The problem is that you have no idea what you want to do. You have had vague ideas about working in the Third World or doing something to “help” people…whatever that means. There has been so much talk about life purpose...what does that mean anyway? How could you find your life purpose? And will you have to get fired before you do? And does a career change mean that everything you have done up until now is lost? The good news is that there are answers to all these questions.

• Yes, you can find your life purpose (and there are clues if you look back over your life)
• No, you don’t have to get fired…but sometimes getting fired or experiencing redundancy is what you need to get on track
• As for losing everything … nothing is lost. Everything you have done will benefit you, even if it’s only to teach you that you never want to do X again.

Laura Berman Fortgang outlines a powerful 12-step career change plan in her book: Now What? Uncover your Life Blueprint. Here are some of the tools she suggests you use to get back on track.

First of all get really clear about what you hate about your current life.

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One of the favored techniques in personal development in adult education is that of the life story. It is often a powerful way for people to connect to long lost dreams and to notice patterns in their life.

What may not be so well known is its power as a way to reveal what you were born to do, what your work blueprint is. Laura Berman Fortgang (in her book Now What? Uncover Your Life Blueprint) describes three tools to use with your life story to elicit meaning from it:

First of all, if you plan to do this exercise, here are some guidelines:   Keep it short (3-4 pages). Write it in bullet points. Also you could group it in some way. Some do it chronologically (5 year intervals). But I have also seen people do it by where they live. Write it over a couple of days and just let yourself remember what you remember (the story you write today is different from the story you would have written 6 months ago).

When you have written the story, read it back and watch for the following:

1. Driving motivators: These are often old-standing patterns that can keep you stuck. An example of that would be a woman who noticed from her life story that a constant theme was that of checking out. She felt that she could not cope with difficulties at home and school, and would simply withdraw into her own world while conflict and arguments swirled around her. This helped her through, but was now keeping her stuck.
2. Interrupted Dreams:  This is a dream you may have had as a child, but somehow it got forgotten along the way. It is often linked to creativity and play. I once had a client who had a long history of playing music since he was a small boy but when I read his life story, I was struck by its absence.

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Retrenchment is no longer a dirty word, and in today’s climate a vast majority of the population have been affected by retrenchment at some stage of their working life whether directly or indirectly.

The familiar ‘one job for life’ mantra seems to be a fleeting memory of the days of old while job uncertainty and the constant threat of unemployment teeters on the edge of our minds constantly reminding us each time we’re ‘called’ into a private meeting.

Lets be honest, being retrenched is stressful, especially the first time. It’s a tough road moving from denial to acceptance and while some people manage to go through these stages with relative ease others may take a little more time.

Whether we like it or not retrenchment is something many people may have to face at some stage of their careers. Here are some constructive tips to help you cope with retrenchment if you happen to find yourself in such a situation.

Don’t take it personally
It’s only natural to feel shock and anger, shock that your company is letting you go and anger that you didn’t get to snatch that great stapler on your way out the door. That being said, you have to understand that being made retrenched is not your fault and is not a reflection on you as a person, its just business. Don’t let what happened to you lower your self-esteem and affect your self-confidence as a job does not define what you are worth as a person.

You need to get back on your feet, so share what you are feeling with those around you and recognise that this happened because of the changing economic situation and the retrenchment of workers is one crucial step that many companies must take in order to cut down costs to survive.

Since it has happened, don’t take it too hard.

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Principles¹ are tools for decision making that bring the moral² basis of decisions into focus. Recognizing the moral context of our decisions must precede any attempt to resolve related difficulties. The failure to recognize the moral context of a decision does not make it morally neutral, it makes it morally unknown and uncontrollable. You can’t control or avoid what you aren’t aware of.

Ethical dilemmas rarely present themselves directly. They tend to sneak up on us. They too often pass us by before we know it. Or they develop so gradually that we only see them in hindsight. Larry Colero says that it is a little like noticing the snake after you’ve been bitten. Principles provide indications that a snake might be present. Principles are like a “snake detector kit.”

But principles don’t only steer us away from what is bad, they also serve to steer us toward what is good. They proscribe and they prescribe as they work to set boundaries or borders. Because people are social beings boundaries and borders are necessary. Without them society would devolve into anarchy and chaos in very short order.

John Carver, the Policy Governance guru, says that “directing an organization can be like rearing a child. Controlling every behavior is a fatiguing and ultimately impossible charge. Inculcating the policies (principles) of life is far more effective and, even if some slippage occurs on individual behaviors, it is the only serviceable approach in the long run.” Carver teaches — and rightly so — that the best principles or policies for an organization should be stated negatively. By proscribing what cannot be done, maximum creative freedom is given to how the organization can be run.

Unfortunately, Carver fails to see that this insight is borrowed from the Bible. The Ten Commandments provide God’s principles for human life.

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Nobody’s perfect. But nobody wants to hear about your problems and baggage either. Especially in the job interview. Some people’s lives begin to sound like a Soap Opera because there have been so many extenuating circumstances. The following is some advice to handle those tricky situations when interviewing that may be difficult to talk about let alone explain.

Returning To The Workforce After An Extended Absence.

1. Be able to explain why you have decided that now is the time for you to return to the work force – why now?

Have a convincing statement about your goals or intentions of staying in the work force after being away for a period of time - this is best done by scripting and practicing your answer so that you feel confident saying it in the interview.

2. Make sure that you are up-to-date on changes that have occurred in your field in your absence.

This may entail taking a brush up class or course. It is important that you be able to show that you can “hit the ground running,” particularly with so many candidates to choose from in this economy.

3. Do some research, using the internet to discover what is required in the type of position you are seeking.

Job postings are “wish lists” that employers put together in hopes of finding the perfect candidate. Use these postings to see what employers are seeking and make sure that your resume and your interview answers address the employer’s “wishes.”

4. Focus on your strengths - the skills that you have used in the past.

Think of five skills that you consider you do “best.” If your strengths are in sync with the employer’s wish list, emphasize your ability and past experiences using those skills to show that you have “been there and done that” and can do it again.

5.

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When you look at all the “superstars” our heroes, the people we emulate we tend to think they are endowed with Super Powers.  They are able to achieve fame, success, fortune due to abilities beyond those that we have been given.  They are simply blessed. 

However, that isn’t the case.  The people who achieve extraordinary results have simply learned how to use a series of skills to achieve their goals. 

Regardless of how vastly different their goals are, they all use basically the same skills.

The wonderful thing about this fact is that if it is just a skill – skills can be learned.  So you and I can Achieve Extraordinary Results, because, it’s just a skill!

In this program I break down the basic skills for goal setting and achievement into 7 tools and 7 rules.

Achieving Extraordinary Results is simple, but not easy.  It seems to me there are three reasons why this is the case for most of us.

First, we live in a society that gives us far too many options.  When we run into resistance we can simply move to something else. We lose sight of the objective.   It is easy to quit without penalty or consequence. 

Second, we have become lazy.  Everyone wants to stand on the platform and receive the gold medal, but few want to actually work for it.  We want the rewards without the work.  Since most of us can get that to some degree, we don’t push ourselves to goal achievement. 

Thirdly, and most importantly,  we really don’t know how to Achieve Extraordinary Results, it is not taught - until now. 

The most important skill that we are missing is the first of the 7 tools and that is how to actually set an achievable Goal. 

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Are you looking for a change in your life? Do you feel that you’ve stopped growing as a person? Do you feel that your life and career have stagnated and you’re ready to take them to the next level? Are you dissatisfied with your current position and eager to advance to a happier and more prosperous position?

The only way to survive and rise to the top of the successful career ladder in today’s economic conditions is to become a wise, effective, and unmatched professional who cannot be replaced or laid off. You must be indispensable! You must be independent, in control, and able to find and attract the best possible position for your skill set-so that even if you ARE laid off, you can still fight your way back to success. And the only way to achieve all of that is to CHANGE.

Let’s face it - we all need to change and improve our lives for the better in one way or another. Most people do try their best to improve their lives so that they can have all the things they dream of for themselves and their families. But the fact is that very few people follow the right approach to real change. Some try to develop new habits, some quit their jobs and start their own businesses, some go back to school, some relocate to other countries where they can find higher salaries and better positions.

You might have noticed, however, that although everyone tries to change, only a select few actually succeed in that endeavor and are able to make significant changes and improvements in their lives. Those few lucky people seem to possess some hidden secrets that allow them to effortlessly advance and reach higher levels of success.

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