So it turns out that I have spent most of my working life unhappy in my job. I also spent a lot of that time pondering, sometimes quietly, sometimes in loud drunken frustration, on what I could do instead and when the heck was I going to be able to give up my job in professional services marketing and do something that made me happy? Now that I’ve come out the other side at the ripe old age of 39, people say to me why did it take you so long? Or what was holding you back? Well there were a number of things.
Time: “I don’t have time to retrain or work out what I want to do”
I uttered this in my mind many a time while sitting in front of the TV for two hours a night watching the latest reality TV offering.
Money: “I can’t afford to take a pay cut and I don’t want to give up my lifestyle”
I often thought when I was sitting on a beach, in the rain, on holiday in a desperate attempt to forget my working life for two weeks of the year.
Commitments: I’ll be letting you down if I jack it all in now?
I said to my husband-to-be when crying on his shoulder on yet another Sunday afternoon
And while these were big barriers for sure. The thing that held me back the most was not knowing what else I could do. When I realised that concerns about money and time, were really just excuses for not doing the hard work of figuring this out, I took action to make sure the rest of my working life was not miserable. I engaged a life coach and I set to work on figuring out what I wanted to do.
And do you know what I found? When I had clarity over my future direction, the other barriers were no longer insurmountable. When you know what you want you will find a way to make time and you will make the finances work. And you won’t worry so much about letting others down because you’ll no longer want to let yourself down.
So when I talk to other mums about career change, I urge them to put aside the practicalities and the how and then tell me what’s really bothering them. “erm ok, well I don’t what to do instead” is what they invariably tell me.
So how do you work out what you want to do when you’ve spent a large portion of your life doing something else? Well firstly you need to put aside the ‘yeah buts’ and the practicalities and then you need to reflect and discover.
Reflect and learn
This involves some of the navel gazing that you would expect but instead of spending ten years pondering and day dreaming, as I did. You need to do structured exercises that get you focused on knowing yourself. How are you supposed to know what career is right for you unless you have a good understanding of yourself, your strengths, your interests, your preferred environments? Unless you do this kind of inner work you will keep going for jobs that sound alright and then discover that they just aren’t right for you. Here are five things to try:
Conduct a survey
This may make you squirm but it’s hard to get a good view of our blind spots – particularly our strengths – unless we ask others. Survey 5 people who know you really well and ask them what they think your strengths and weaknesses are and what are the things you’re really good at?
Do a career audit
Think about all the jobs you’ve ever had and simply note your likes and dislikes, why you took the job and why you left. Try to go far back if you can. When I did this exercise I went as far as back as my student job in a book shop (I loved curling up when my boss wasn’t looking and reading the personal development books) and my job at the university careers service (I loved reading about all the different careers and industries out there) which turned out to be big clues for my new direction. Can you see any commonalities amongst your answers? Any mistakes you keep making? Anything you used to love which is now missing from your life?
Make a list of all your passions and interests
In life, not just work. Past and present. Are there any that you enjoy so much that you forget time when you’re doing them? Circle the ones that you’re really drawn to now and for each circled one ask yourself what drew you to it? Can you see any commonality amongst your answers? Is there anything you’d like to start doing again? If you’ve forgotten, maybe ask your mum what you were like as a kid? What did you like doing? What did you hate doing?
What are you known for?
What do you people come and ask your advice about? What are the things that you are known for being knowledgeable about? Maybe it’s nutrition? Interior design? Fashion? Kids’ behaviour? Places to go on holiday?
What’s your vision for your life?
Here’s an opportunity to let your imagination run wild. Go ahead and create a vision for how you would love your life to be and within it design the most perfect job for you. Think about where you’d live, hobbies you would have, who would surround you? What would you be doing all day? How many hours would you work? Where would you work? Who would you be working with? i.e. on your own or with others? Would you have a boss? Inside or out? Working with numbers or words? Or both? Perhaps the idea of defining an ideal job is too hard so maybe think about what the least ideal job and life would be and flip it (don’t despair if it’s the job and life you have now). You could try doing this in a free flowing journaling exercise or maybe if you’re a more visual person you could create a vision board using magazine cutouts or on pinterest?
All of these exercises and more are included in my Working Mum Career Change Plan. Subscribe to my newsletter or contact me for your copy. Now that you’ve done some thinking, have a read through and see how this sits with you? Can you see some common themes or are you still drawing a blank? Maybe try discussing with a friend. Is there anything you want to explore further?
Do and discover
To really ramp things up you need to get out there because thinking and navel gazing will only get you so far. Now I may have been living under a rock but I had never really heard of life and career coaching five years ago but one day I decided to throw caution to the wind and meet a friend for lunch instead of sitting at my desk with my sandwiches, as I did every other lunchtime (crazy huh?). While chatting in this new restaurant, my friend told me about the career coach she had seen who had helped her find an amazing new job. I was intrigued. I asked her to send me some links to some blogs she was following and before I knew it I had booked a complimentary consultation with a life coach. Now I didn’t go ahead and book coaching that time but I did have a list of people to follow and courses to check out. In other words, I had some interesting leads. That all started with going out for lunch.
Sometimes we need to do something different and change our routine. “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.”
Here are some things to try:
Do something new
Aim to do something new every week, or every day if you can. This might be something as small as going to a new place for coffee, or listening to a new podcast, or as big as signing up for an art course. Don’t expect too much and hope that you’ll find a whole new career from that first venture, but do something that piques your interest and have fun in the process. Career change takes time and will lead you out of your comfort zone – you need to get used to that fact. So get used to enjoying the not knowing and the practice of trying new things out. As a career changer you will be doing this a lot.
Do something small
Make a list, of all the careers that interest you or that have interested you in the past (but perhaps you talked yourself out of) and remember to leave the practicalities aside for now! Next to each career think of a small way that you could experience that career. Now the key word here is experience. In other words this needs to be in the real world and not internet research. Do you know anyone that works in that career that you could interview or job shadow? Could you volunteer for a day in an area related to that career? For example, if you were once interested in working with animals, but talked yourself out of it, could you volunteer at a local animal sanctuary for a day? If you like the sound of being a writer could you go on a writers’ day retreat? Again, don’t expect immediate success or a job. This is about getting you out of your comfort zone and trying new things. In the process you may make contacts and improve your knowledge and confidence. All of which are crucial things to have during a career change.
Find people
People find other people, not jobs. So find your people. If there is a career that interests you then go to some events in that area now or join linkedin or facebook groups. Build and nurture your network. And by this I don’t mean, print some cards, head to the nearest networking event and scatter them around the room. I mean think about how you know, who they know and how you could help them in some way. Build reciprocal relationships now so you are not the one who is always calling in the favours. One day you will be thankful for it.
I hope this blog post has given you some ideas to help you get out of your head and start making your career change dreams a reality. Starting out again at 39 can be a little uncomfortable but it’s better than being stuck forever.
If you need help getting unstuck then contact me for a free working mum SOS or check out my coaching packages here.