Helping Career Changers Around The World

May 2010

Hello!

Welcome to the May 2010 edition of The 5 Minute Career Coach!

What's in this Issue

• Quote of the Day
• Your 5 Minute Coaching Session
• Community Member Spotlight
• Article of the Month - Your New Career Identity
• What Is Your Biggest Career Change Question?
• Recommended Resources – Goal Mapping Online
• Comments and Feedback
• Useful Links

Want to share thoughts and ideas with other career changers? Why not join my How To Change Careers Facebook Group? I am hoping it will become a place where I can support you as well as you getting encouragement from one another. Look forward to meeting you there!

With best wishes

Cherry

Cherry Douglas
Your Career Change Guide

How To Change Careers

Click here to access Nick Williams' FREE ecourse on Discovering the Work You Were Born To Do

Please don't keep me a secret!

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.

Know Your Personality, Know Your Career

• 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.

Quote of the Day

What gifts and talents are you afraid to own? How can you bring them into the light and use them for your own and others' benefit?

Your 5 Minute Coaching Session

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.

Try this one for size.

Is your life and work centered around what you think you 'ought to' be doing? Are you doing things out of a sense of obligation or because they inspire you? Will the story of you life be one you will look back on with pride as something that is truly yours – or will it be someone else's story played out by you?

Community Member Spotlight

I decided it would be nice to say a particular hello to one individual member of the 5 Minute Career Coach Community each month, just picked at random from the list.

For May I am sending extra best wishes to Asaata.

Hi Asaata! I hope you are enjoying receiving the 5 Minute Career Coach. I trust it is offering something to interest and inspire you each month and helping you make progress with your career change.

Your New Career Identity

I was walking round the woods with the dogs this morning, listening to a talk by Nick Williams called 'The Book You Were Born To Write'. The very first exercise he asked his participants to do was to walk round and introduce themselves to a few other people as the successful author they aspired to be.

This struck me as a great exercise for career changers too, so I decided to adapt his exercise for the 5 Minute Career Coach Community. Here's my suggestion for this month.

Get together with some supportive friends and practise introducing yourself as if you were already in the new job you dream of having.

"Hello, I'm Dana and I am a solicitor in a big City law firm advising large corporate clients."

"Hi, I'm Terry and I run a photography business specialising in quirky and individual portraits."

"Good to meet you – I'm Rayonne and I work as a freelance garden designer."

"Good morning, I'm Naveen. I used to be a teacher but now I am work with a Youth Action Project running practical courses to help young people build their confidence and self-esteem."

Get the idea?

Then carry the conversation on for a while. Get your friend to ask you questions like:

• What does your job involve on a day-to-day-basis?


• What is it about your work that you really love?


• What made you decide that this was the kind of work you really wanted to do?


• What makes you particularly good at this kind of job?


• What are the biggest rewards for you in this kind of work?


• Where do you see yourself 5 years down the road as you are truly established in your new field?

Use your imagination to fill in the gaps in your knowledge. Allow yourself to build up a picture of what this new role will be like for you. This is a great way of beginning to get yourself to truly identify with the job you would love to do. You flesh it out and breathe life into the dream. You imagine what it would feel like to be on the inside of that kind of work and make it your own.

I am not a great believer in the notion that you just have to imagine something and then it will magically appear – of course there are many steps you will need to take to reach your career goal and they may not all be easy ones. But I think giving yourself permission to create a really compelling picture of what it will be like when you get there can really strengthen your resolve and self belief in a way that will help keep you moving on the journey.

Why not give it a try?

I got the recording of Nick's workshop as I am a member of his Inspired Entrepreneur's Club. I get recordings of events for free – a great benefit as I can just listen whenever suits me. There are currently 14 past talks available to download if you join as a Premium or Silver member and Nick offers trial 1 month memberships for just £1 which gives you immediate access to all 14 talks as well as discount on workshops, books and 1-1 coaching.

Here's a list of events that are coming up soon. As a member you can attend in person or access the recordings after the event for free:

How To Build a Successful Portfolio Business - Adrian Bourne

How To Discover Your Authentic Voice – Julia McCutchen

Social Networking for Inspired Entrepreneurs – Penny Power

What Is Your Biggest Career Change Question?

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.

So what is your biggest question or concern about changing careers?

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.

Career Change Tip from Cherry, Your Career Change Guide

Not so long ago, I was asked by a recent maths graduate whether he should go into a career in accountancy. All his friends and relations said this was what he should do, assuming that this was the obvious choice for him. They couldn't understand why he was hesitating. There was lots of money to be made in that career after all.

The answer lay in the word 'should'. I asked him to think about the difference between what he (or someone else) thought he should be doing and what he really wanted to do. How would he feel spending the next 40 or more years of his year doing what he 'should' be doing?

He decided against accountancy.

Recommended Resources

This month I am recommending a web based interactive tool called Goal Mapping Online.

http://www.goalmappingonline.com/

If you like interactive stuff and want something to enliven your attempts at goal setting and action planning, why not take a look at this?

There are webinars and video to explain how the system works and it guides you through creating your own Goal Map using the range of images and ideas they supply or you can personalise it by uploading your own images. You can then use the planning feature to set actions and track your progress.

Basic bronze level membership is free so you can experiment with the software and see if it suits your learning style. You can then pay a small subscription to access a wider range of tools if you wish.

Why not go and have a play now and see if it is something that will help you keep focused and on target with your career change?

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 and resources that have inspired you and that you would like to recommend, there is a place for you to do so on that page.

Comments and Feedback

I want to be sure that both this newsletter and the How To Change Careers website are focused on YOU.

The best way I can do this is by asking for your comments and feedback:

• What do you enjoy and find most helpful about the 5 Minute Career Coach?


• What suggestions do you have for improvements to the 5 Minute Career Coach?

Useful Links

Read more articles about career change on the How To Change Careers website

Contact me with any queries or questions

Read my ezine articles

Find me on Selfgrowth.com

Follow me on Twitter

Join me on Facebook

Join my How To Change Careers Facebook Group

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Your Subscription Information