August 01, 2010
Helping Career Changers Around The World
August 2010
Hello!
Welcome to the August 2010 edition of The 5 Minute Career Coach.
What's in this Issue
- Quote of the Day
- Article of the Month - Take A Walk on the Wild Side
- Your 5 Minute Coaching Session
- What Is Your Biggest Career Change Question?
- Recommended Resources – Eat That Frog!
- Comments and Feedback
- Useful Links
I am delighted to welcome a guest writer this month, Susie Lomax. Susie and I know each other through Nick Williams' Inspired Entrepreneurs' Club - I think we have both found the Club a source of amazing inspiration and support. Susie is one of those courageous souls who has walked away from corporate life. Click here to read more about how she has survived and thrived – I know you will enjoy it.
Meet Susie on my Facebook Group
And if you’d like to share your thoughts and ideas about Susie's story, why not join my How To Change Careers Facebook Group? You'll find Susie there and I'm sure she'd love to hear from you. We both look forward to meeting you there!
Here's another idea
If you find the 5 Minute Career Coach helpful, if it gives you a boost and helps you keep focused on your career change plans, then maybe you could buy me a coffee to help keep my inspiration going? A shot of caffeine is always welcome! Just click the button!
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
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.
The CV & Resume Workbook
Do you want to know the secret that will help you win your dream job? Do you want to avoid being one of those whose resume is discarded every time? Then just use the 12 Step Process in my CV & Resume Workbook.
Just click here to read more about The CV & Resume Workbook
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.
Quote of the Day
Often attributed to Goethe, but actually it's not as simple as that! Click here to read more.
Yes, sometimes you just have to do it and once you get started, a natural momentum emerges. Are you bold enough to begin?
Take A Walk On The Wild Side
Summer holidays are here again and as soon as that holiday feeling soaks into your skin you probably find that you are miraculously transformed.
After just a few days the sunshine and sea air, you start believing that your desire to have a more fulfilling life is achievable. You wonder why at home it seems a burden to have dreams when here on this beautiful beach things seem so much lighter and easier. You begin to wonder 'can I really live the life I desire?'
Well why not?
Is routine getting in the way?
Without realising it, you have probably got a very routine way of living. From the time you get up through to when you go to bed – all is done to a familiar pattern.
On the one hand, this brings a kind of normality and comfort which feels safe. On the other, what you are doing is shutting down your ability to adapt and change which is not only vital for survival but is essential for fulfilment and happiness.
What is it getting in the way of?
You. When considering a career change, indeed any change, you have to get out of your own way. If you can allow yourself to experience those same holiday feelings where ideas and energy flow, you can start expanding your horizons and you will rediscover inspiration and purpose.
So how do you recreate those holiday feelings?
When I left the City after 10 years in the corporate world I just assumed that I would somehow magically wake up with new ideas energy and the perfect plan. I was wrong. Sometimes I was so disillusioned that I seriously considered going back to what I knew. What I didn't realise was that I needed to get out of my own way.
The great news is – and I know because I have done this myself - if you begin to make small tweaks consistently, before you know it, ideas flow. Routine is substituted with fresh excitement. The most important thing to remember is to find the magic combination of boldness and consistency.
Here are a number of things to try – they worked for me!
Get out of the rut.
Stop doing things on autopilot. Instead find something that inspires you. Read an inspirational book or jump onto the laptop and go to www.TED.com where there are dozens of free video talks given by inspiring people.
Break out of the 'lethargic' trap.
Do something differently. Try taking a different route to work or to the shops, try different food, go somewhere you have never been before. The idea is to get out of your comfort zone. Take it gradually - too much too soon and you'll just scare yourself back to safety – but you can be bold in small steps!
Imagine your perfect day. As you wake up, where are you? Is anyone with you? What does your room look like? When you open the curtains, what's outside? What do you eat? Where do you go? Who else appears? Are you working? Doing what? Be as detailed as you can. If you take your time over this exercise it can reveal aspects about a life you really want, or maybe you already have parts of it.
Get active and stretch yourself.
If you have been made redundant don't stay at home and live off the redundancy. Go and get a part time job to pay the bills or maybe do some charity work. I went and got a job charity fundraising. I thought I was going to be sick when I started I was so far out of my comfort zone. But I showed up over and over again and discovered that when talking to total strangers about something I actually believed in I was full of passion and empathy. It showed me the key ingredients for my new career.
Get support.
Any form of change is difficult and there were times when I thought I was all alone. My friends and my boyfriend often didn’t understand why I wanted something else. Some actually felt threatened. You need support to keep you going. I began to network with like-minded people and most importantly I began to ask for help. You will be stunned at how many people will help if you only ask.
Expand your horizons.
We all have a tendency to make our world smaller as we age. We have got it wrong. What you need to do is expand. Be bold, open up, be creative, get involved, be interested and take action. If you do this you can become a holiday person at home, healthier and happier.
Make the choice to live a more fulfilling life and you will inspire others to do the same. So if you are game I am. LET’S TAKE A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE!
If you'd like to walk on the wild side with Susie, why not follow her on Twitter? Susie's brand new website will be up soon and her Twitter followers will be the first to know.
Want to ask Susie a question? You can do this on the How To Change Careers Facebook Group.
Want to share your own story here in the 5 Minute Career Coach? Just get in touch!
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.
This month my question is actually one that I orginally came across posed by Seth Godin. It fits in well with the theme of boldness, I think.
Just check in with yourself when you are thinking about your career change. Are you building up a picture of all the things that could go wrong? Are you creating a mental image of failure?
Hmmmm. Could that be part of the problem?
Try creating a picture of the positive outcome of your career change instead so that it becomes a magnet that draws you into bold action.
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.
Recommended Resources
A lighthearted little book with a serious purpose.
There's an old saying that if the first thing you do in the morning is to eat a live frog, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that it's probably the worst thing you'll do all day. This is one of Brian Tracy's 21 tips to overcoming procrastination. No, not to eat a live frog each morning, you'll be pleased to hear, but to tackle the difficult things first so that everything else seems easier thereafter.
Eat That Frog! offers you a series of practical and achievable steps that will stop you procrastinating and help you get on with what you really want to do in your life – whether it is changing career or just fixing that dripping tap in the bathroom!
A little book that could transform your life!
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