Helping Career Changers Around The World

March 2011

Hello!

Welcome to the March 2011 edition of The 5 Minute Career Coach.

What's in this Issue

• Quote of the Day
• Article of the Month - It's The Money Issue...
• Your 5 Minute Coaching Session
• What Is Your Biggest Career Change Question?
• Recommended Resources – How To Become A Money Magnet
• Comments and Feedback
• Useful Links

A visitor to the How To Change Careers website got in touch with me recently with a few thoughts and questions about his own career situation. And what was the issue lying snuggly at the heart of it all? Money!

This is probably not a surprise to many of you. Money is one of the key factors that keeps people locked in jobs they hate. Is this what is happening to you?

So what's to be done about it?

Well, I have no quick-fix instant solutions, but lots of ideas to get you thinking about your own attitude to money, how that shapes what you do and don't feel able to do to improve your career. With that in mind, this month's article focuses on the 'money issue'. Just click here to read more.

With best wishes

Cherry

Cherry Douglas
Your Career Change Guide

How To Change Careers

• Would you like to get greater clarity over what kind of work could be right for you?


• Are you intrigued by the idea that your personality can guide you towards the right career choice?


• Would a list of career ideas that match your personality be useful?

Then take a look at Know Your Personality, Know Your Career and find out more.

Just click here to read more about The CV & Resume Workbook

Feel free to share this newsletter and my website with your friends. I wouldn't mind betting that there will be a few of them who are unhappy with their own careers.

Remember that they can get their free copy of 11¾ Ways To Kick Start Your Career Change when they visit the How To Change Careers website.

Are you getting caught up in the money stuff? Is it time to step back and put it into perspective alongside the bigger issues in life?

It's strange, isn't it? Money is something that most of us want more of, it is something that is meant to make life easier and yet somehow it turns on us and becomes a burden that weighs us down. Not surprising that me recent contact via this website talked about 'the bondage of money'.

And this is a particular challenge for would-be career changers. For many, money is the one thing that holds them back, that prevents them from making the bid for freedom from the corporate cage.

So what's to be done about it?

No simple answers, of course, but as always, the more willing you are to take a long hard look at your situation and ask some challenging questions, the more likely you are to release the grip that money has over you.

So here are my suggestions for moving forward with this thorny issue.

Money is...
A simple but revealing exercise is to take a sheet of paper and write 'Money is...' at least ten times down one side. Then fill in the blanks and see what it reveals about your attitudes towards money.

What did your family teach you about money?
What were the messages (probably unspoken) that you picked up about money from your childhood? Was money scarce and so had to be saved carefully? Was it earned as a result of hard work and effort? Was it easy come, easy go? How were wealthy people looked upon – admired as the epitome of success or slightly sneered at as 'nouveau riche'?

Has it got to be work you love OR money?
This is a common belief. The implication is that work is meant to be hard and if you are enjoying the work you are doing then you are not allowed to make money from it. How valid is that as a rule for life? Why should it be impossible to earn a living doing something you love? Take a few minutes to think of someone you know of who earns a living doing something they enjoy – I bet you can find some examples!

Are you assuming the worst?
Do you think that if you give up the security of your current regular income the outcome will be poverty? How valid is this all or nothing thinking? What about all the other possible options that lie between these two poles?

Get practical and do your sums
Do you actually know where your money goes at the moment? Do you know what you really need to live on? A great way to tackle your fears about money is to confront them and reveal them as unfounded or misjudged. Monitor your spending over the next few weeks and then assess what is essential and what is optional. Ask your family what they would be prepared to do without in order to release you from a job you hate. OK a 90% drop in salary would be a serious challenge, but what about a 20% drop? Or a 30% drop? Maybe not as impossible as you think.

What are the real costs you are counting?
Well, you already know they say you can't take it with you. So what do you want your legacy to be at the end of this life? A load of money in the bank and a big inheritance tax bill to pay? Or a sense that you have used the gifts and talents you have been given to the full, had some fun and maybe still made a reasonable living along the way.

And one last thought...
I already asked you about the messages you picked up from your parents about money. Are you satisfied with the messages you are passing on to your children?

If you think this newsletter and my website deliver good value, just click the button below and buy my next cup!

Or click through to the How To Change Careers website!

Challenging questions are one of the key tools coaches use in helping clients to create change.

Each month I offer you a mini coaching session by asking you a challenging question to think about. The questions I ask are designed to get you thinking in new ways and hopefully gain insights that may open your mind to new possibilities for you career and for your life.

This is another way of checking your underlying beliefs about money. Sayings trip easily off the tongue and are often just taken on board with no thought or analysis. Try jotting down a few of the ones that spring to mind for you and check in with yourself if you really think they are true.

And don't forget, you can read more financial advice on career change on the How To Change Careers website

This section in the 5 Minute Career Coach, gives you the opportunity to ask a specific question you may have about changing career. I will do my best to answer the questions that come up either here in the 5 Minute Career Coach or on the How To Change Careers website.

If you'd like to ask a question about changing careers, just click this link and fill in the form to submit your question via the How To Change Careers website.

And you can also read some of the questions I have already answered here.

How To Become A Money Magnet
Marie-Claire Carlyle

You know, I have to admit that I am not too keen on the title of this book. You see it presses some of MY buttons around money, my limiting beliefs about what is OK / not OK about how money comes into my life.

But this is precisely why the book is so helpful - because it makes you look closely at your attitudes and beliefs about money.

Marie-Claire Carlyle has run many workshops on this very topic and she has seen the positive results her approach can achieve.

The book is based on her workshops and takes you through seven key steps which will help you to reassess your relationship with money so that it flows more easily in your life. It is all founded on the basic idea of challenging your thinking and beliefs and then changing your habits to more productive and helpful ones.

Interested in Marie-Claire's workshops?
Marie-Claire is running her workshops this year in March (in Ireland) and in April, July and October (in London). If you think you could do with some help sorting out the role money plays in your life, just click this link and scroll down the page to find out more.

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.

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