If lately you’ve been thinking, “I hate my job,” or if you feel you are stuck in a career rut, then it may be time to think outside of the box.
Imagine that your current job has been eliminated from the face of the earth, and you now have to do something completely different. What might you like to do? Pick any five new careers that you fancy. Don’t worry if you don’t have the training or education. Write a paragraph about why you’d want this career. Then go on to the next career. Why would you want this career? This will also help you figure out what you really value and may point you in the right direction to a possible new career.
An example
One of my coaching clients, Jenny, a hardworking forty-five-year-old human resources executive, did this career change exercise and came up with a rather unexpected result. She was surprised to discover that she’d like to look after and tend other people’s gardens. Somehow it just didn’t fit with her idea of the executive life she had. She also listed being an artist, a photographer or a painter as one of her career options. Her five new careers revealed a strong creative side that had been stifled in her corporate job. She had never allowed herself to try these different career ideas.
The result
I asked Jenny to take one day a week to work at home and make it her creative day. Even if it is a small start and you only have half an hour, pick up a paintbrush or snap a few photographs. Soon, she had a job offer to go into the interior design business. When she finished her first painting, her friends thought she had purchased it from a “real” artist. She is now selling her home and moving into a less expensive apartment in anticipation of quitting her executive job to pursue these new interests. She felt stuck, unfulfilled and dissatisfied, and now she is more vibrantly alive than ever.
What little steps can you take today to start changing your career or to start living one of these five new careers?
This simple coaching tip will help make the future look promising and exciting instead of dull, drab and routine.
Coach Yourself to a New Career (published by McGraw-Hill) is full of tips and is a ready-to-use program that will change your outlook, your direction and your purpose—for good.
If you are ready to start changing your life and career, then you would benefit from some coaching. Learn more about our career coaching options here.
