Helping Career Changers Around The World

February 2012

Hello!

Happy New Year! Welcome to the February 2012 edition of The 5 Minute Career Coach.

What's in this Issue

• Article of the Month - What's It All About?
• Career Breakthrough Telesummit
• Something To Think About
• Cherry Recommends – The Artist's Way
• About Cherry

I am sitting here at my desk with the gentle early morning sun streaming in on me. I can feel the warmth on my left side and back. I am home alone and the dogs are snoozing downstairs now that they have been walked and fed. It is very quiet apart from the ticking of the clock on the wall.

My job for this morning is to write the February newsletter and I love to start by just sitting for a few minutes to think about you. I wonder where you are and what prompted you to sign up to join the 5 Minute Career Coach community in the first place.

Where are you in your life and career and what support do you need? What can I share with you today that will perhaps touch the spot for you and prompt you to take a simple step forwards to help you find a more satisfying and rewarding working life?

Today it feels like it should be about encouraging you to be more connected with what is going on for you at a deeper level. About encouraging you to stop for a minute in the mad whirl of daily life to take stock and reflect on who you are and what your purpose might be.

So imagine you too are sitting in the warm early morning sunshine in a quiet and peaceful place of your choice and read on...

With very best wishes

Cherry

Cherry Douglas
Your Career Change Guide

How To Change Careers

PS I am really excited to let you know about the Career Breakthrough Telesummit I have been planning with two colleagues. It is coming up on 21st, 22nd and 23rd February. Just click here to read more.

It is only too easy when you are considering a career change, to focus on superficial details without ever really dipping down to explore the heart of the matter. So you revise your resume, your scour the job ads and look for career ideas that seem to match with your skills.

Or maybe you do some more detailed thinking about your values, your interests and your personality, aiming to put together the jigsaw of pieces that make you the person you are. You hope that when you do that, all will suddenly become clear.

But what about taking yet another perspective, one that requires you to look deeper still, further than you have before?

What is your life purpose?

Many people never ask themselves this. Have you?

How does that question make you feel?

Challenged? Inspired? Confused? Embarrassed?

It is rarely an easy question to answer but it is one that is well worth reflecting on.

I believe that it is helpful to begin by letting go of the idea that there is a crystal clear answer waiting to be identified. It is more likely to be a search that will reveal its answer slowly over time and chances are you will feel it in your heart or gut before you are ever able to articulate it.

It seems to me that it is essentially about finding a way of living that allows you to be true to yourself.

This, of course begs the question 'who am I?' or 'who am I meant to be?'

Again, don't necessarily try to define it in sharp focus – it is more about getting in tune with what feels authentic – and also being honest with yourself when things do not feel right for you. Because whatever you may be here to do, if you are not acting from a place of authenticity, then you are playing a charade.

What matters is that you slowly develop an understanding of the conditioning that stops you from knowing yourself and that you then gradually dissolve the barriers that are preventing the real you from showing up.

Your purpose is about letting the real you shine out.

You may be wondering where that purpose comes from, but before we go too far down the line of some inborn or God given identity and purpose, let me throw in a side ball with the following video from TED.com, 'Is there a real you?'

Baggiani takes the point of view that the thing we call our 'self' is simply constructed as a result of our experiences, our beliefs, our social setting and so forth.

Essentially both Bagianni's basic position and the God-given one are quite passive perspectives, but the additional angle that Bagianni introduces is the notion that you can play an active part in constructing the person you are and thus the purpose you adopt.

How does this relate to career change?

If you are at a career crossroads, stop for a while to dig a bit deeper, to check whether you feel that you are currently living your life 'on purpose'? Does your work allow you express something of that purpose and if not what alternatives would feel like a more authentic expression of who you are and what you are here for? And alongside that, what can you do to actively construct a sense of self and purpose that will feel authentic?

The Career Breakthrough Telesummit Are you fed up and frustrated with the pressures and demands of a job that drains your energy? Do you feel bored and unappreciated in your job, and you're looking for a new challenge? Are you afraid redundancy is on the horizon? Do you want to make changes in your career, or start a business, but don't know where to begin? I have got together with two colleagues to create a FREE Career Breakthrough Telesummit which we will be running on 21st, 22nd and 23rd February 2012. Julia Barnickle - Cherry Douglas - Karen Revell There will be three 1 hour teleclasses: Kick Start Your Career Change, with Cherry Douglas Passions Into Profits, with Julia Barnickle The Great Corporate Escape, with Karen Revell Want to know more? Just click here for full details

At first glance you may think this book is only for 'creatives' – after all, the subtitle is 'a course in discovering and recovering your creative self'.

However, as I read through the book, it really spoke to me, even though I am not an artist. It seems to me that everything Julia Cameron says about discovering or recovering your creative self can be read as an extended metaphor for discovering who you truly are inside. And at the end of the day, that journey of discovery is what lies at the heart of any career change.

The book is presented as a 12 week course which takes you through the key challenges which artist will be very familiar with but which in fact are themes we all face at various points in life. She helps you explore issues like:

• What is blocking you?


• Who around you is helping or hindering your progress?


• What are the dreams you have buried inside you?


• Learning to listen to your heart.


• Excavating the messages from your past that may be holding you back


• How to be gentle with yourself as you explore

Many artists would say that in their hearts they know they are here to make art, write, sculpt, perform...

You also have a purpose in this world - to discover or recover 'the real you' who may have been lying dormant for a long time.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who can feel the need for change bubbling up inside them. Read it with an open mind, inserting 'the real me' in place of 'artist' and 'creative self'.

Follow the course and you will find yourself on a real journey of discovery.

Pick up your own copy from Amazon.com

Pick up your own copy from Amazon.co.uk

More recommendations
If you would like to see more recommendations for books and similar resources, follow the link to the Career Change Books page of the How To Change Careers website. Do keep popping back to it as I am adding to it all the time.

And if there are books, websites and other resources that have inspired you and that you would like to recommend, there is a place for you to do so on that page.

Cherry Douglas is Your Career Change Guide. She is a UK based professional career coach and career change consultant.

Cherry has been supporting people like you, with career choice, career change and job search issues for nearly 25 years. As a highly successful career change consultant, and having made career changes herself over the years, Cherry really understands the challenges and difficulties that you may face in dealing with our own career – and can help you too, to overcome your own problems and obstacles.

Over the years, Cherry has been privileged to work with hundreds of clients, helping them to find their way forward with their careers…with anything from a quick CV review to a complete career change.

To learn more about Cherry, visit the How To Change Careers website.

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