Imagine yourself a year from now
Waking up in the morning to do work that you love and are passionate about.
As the sun streams through your window you have a little smile on your face.
Instead of feeling that dread and snoozing your alarm, you jump out of bed and kick start your morning routine.
It’s not just what you do that has changed, it’s also your mindset.
You feel confident in yourself and your abilities.
You trust yourself and trust the process.
You no longer feel that sense of misalignment and that you are living someone else’s version of success.
You feel empowered.
“No one cares about your career as much as you do”
That is the number one piece of advice I give to people early on in their career, but it really applies to all of us.
Whether your career is employed, self-employed or a combination of the two - you have got to sit in that driving seat.
Because if you don’t, you won’t get to where you DESERVE to be. Where you DREAM of being. You won’t feel that PASSION, that sense of CONTENTMENT, that ALIGNMENT.
And I want that for you so badly!
I want everyone to love the work they do and for it to align to their purpose and their passions. Because this is what gets us closer to our life vision. Our path into the future of where we want to go, how we want to feel and how we want to be spending our time.
It was when I took this advice myself that things really changed for me. Because I was unhappy. I was unhappy in my career for years and then I went through the process of making changes to fix that.
For me that looked like leaving a successful and very well paid director position in a FTSE 100 financial services company. Whilst on maternity leave. As the pandemic hit.
It meant working with a coach 4 years before I resigned and sowing a seed of a different kind of work life. A possibility was planted.
It looked like taking my coaching qualification 2 years after that and whilst I was still employed to test the waters on whether coaching is something that I would want to do in the future.
It looked like believing in myself and my abilities that I would make a success of my new business, but that I would also do everything in my power to financially support myself (which was hugely important to me). This meant for the first 18 months of my business I also took on freelance program and project management projects which didn’t set my heart of fire, but was something I was good at and expanded my industry knowledge of tech pharma, media agencies, charities and arab banks.
Taking control of your career unlocks your power and unleashes your potential.
It is quite often small steps that snowball and cumulate (the compound effect is incredible!) into big leaps and big changes to all aspects of your life.
Here are some tips and tricks:
UNDERSTAND YOURSELF
Within ELEVATE, my group coaching program for women in companies - my clients spend time creating a SWOT analysis to better understand themselves. For those that aren’t aware of what a SWOT analysis is - it’s a great tool to assess yourself internally (strengths and weaknesses) and externally (opportunities and threats). Here is a good article which explains it in detail. It really helps to start from a place of understanding.
Whilst I believe certain jobs require a level of skill which may involve you levelling up and improving on your weaknesses - where the real value comes from is levelling up your strengths and turning them into super strengths. Superstrengths or unique selling points (USP’s) are the things that set you aside and make you stand out. Find those and hone them!
LOVE IT OR LOATHE IT?
This is a great tool to understand what you love about roles that you have done in the past and what you loathe. You can do this on a piece of paper and split into 2 columns. Also think about other passions outside of work that you also love that you feel could feed into potential roles in the future.
WHAT IS YOU CAREER MOVE IN 2 JOBS TIME?
Rather than thinking about your next move, we want to look slightly further into the future. This will allow you to work backwards and be in the best possible position to secure that role, at the time you want to. This doesn’t have to be set in stone, but hopefully you will have an idea about what you love and the direction you want to move in.
An example of this may be you know you want a manager position which is more highly paid and you love technology but you are not in a tech role at the moment. So that could be your move in 2 jobs time, but your next role could be a manager position which gets you that people experience and stands you in good stead for that lateral move.
WHAT DOES YOUR FOCUS NEED TO BE NOW?
Taking into account the work from your SWOT analysis, what you love and your career focus
Start thinking about what you need to focus your efforts on now.
It may be helpful to have these written as goals and break these down into smaller chunks (I go into this in detail on the blog)
You should then have small enough tasks that you can fit into your to do list and you can start making progress closer to these goals.
Think about what skills you need to develop in your current role and share this with your leader to see how this can happen. We often have so much more flexibility in our roles then we believe so let’s say you want to move towards a manager position - how can you get leadership experience now? Could you indirectly support a new colleague? Could you lead an intern? It’s useful to think outside the box here and don’t be afraid to ask for what you want and follow up to make sure it happens!
Also spend time thinking about what shifts you need to make in your mindset to help support you to work towards these goals - is it confidence? Do you need more self-discipline? Quite often our mindset is the thing that we don’t think about, but it is so important to ensure you reach your goals!
I’d love to support you as you go through this process so please respond to this email with any questions or support you need!
Are you itching for change and growth in your career right now? As we approach the end of Q1 you realise you're not closer to your goals you set at the top of the year. You know you need to commit to making the changes now in order to get the results you want in the future.
Ready to fully invest in your greatest asset, YOU? When you’re at a crossroad - whether that’s a change in career, becoming a mother, not becoming a mother or wanting to break away from society’s chains - it’s time to reconnect to your power so you can make conscious, lasting changes.
As you might expect, a full life transformation takes a bit of time. Across 3 months, we’ll lay down your personal foundations, reevaluate and re-route your direction and cut through your mindset blocks, leaving you energised and motivated to live a life that YOU’ve designed.
Want to see if this is right for you? Jump on a call with me, booking link here