For a long time in my career I felt like I was playing a part. The part of interested, enthusiastic, go-getting professional services marketer. I would go along to meetings and nod my head, take notes and be tenacious at following up on actions later.
I would put in the hours on a tender, I would shake hands and smile at events, and I would even read industry publications every now and then.
But most of the time I felt deeply uncomfortable in my job. And it wasn’t the good discomfort that we’re so used to hearing about nowadays. I would look at my peers in my industry and beat myself up for not being as with it as they were. I would dread any kind of public speaking because I was worried my deep dislike for my job would shine through and I was stuck in a no-man’s land of wishing I could be more than what I was in my career but at the same time wishing I could escape.
Every day I felt like I was pulling myself up and putting on my heavy big girl shoes. And the act was absolutely exhausting.
Perhaps this is a feeling you are familiar with?
A lot of my clients tell me that they want a career where they can just be themselves.
Now even in the world’s most amazing job, we may have to polish up our act every now and then. We may need to wear smart attire when we wish we could stay in our pyjamas or we may need to curb bad language in a meeting. Sometimes we will need to do things that make us uncomfortable (the good discomfort, the stuff that makes us grow).
But I don’t think that being ourselves at work is too much to ask.
This is why if you’re going through a career change it is so important to get in touch with who YOU are, what YOU value, what interests YOU and what motivates YOU.
Most people have never done this. I was one of them.
I fell into a career that made sense. Based on the qualifications I had, what I was good at and what the world of work was prepared to pay me at that time, I ended up working in marketing. And I stuck at that career for 15 years.
And that’s kind of ok. Most people will work in a career because it “makes sense” for their whole lives. And they may be perfectly ok with that. Good for them.
But if you’re reading this blog post and you are familiar with that feeling of not being yourself at work, and you don’t like it, then I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be that way.
When you’re lying on your death bed, hopefully surrounded by the children that you sacrificed so much for, do you want to look back on a life that “made sense” or a life that was yours? Where most of the time you could be yourself, warts and all and not have to work so damned hard at being someone else.
In her book “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying,” Bonnie Ware writes, from her experiences with Palliative Care patients, that their number one regret is that they wish they’d “had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected.” The second biggest regret is “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
I believe the two are connected.
If you are serious about having a career where you can be yourself then download my 12 Week Career Change Planner. It gets you to start with YOU. Because the foundation of any successful career change is knowing who you are and what you want out of your one precious life.