So often, when I see people struggle in the process of finding fulfilling work, it's nothing to do with external circumstances and everything to do with what's going on in their minds.
Our minds can be our own worst enemies. Either we get caught up in repetitive thoughts about how we'll never be successful in landing that dream job ("It's too late for me / I'm not skilled enough / it's too competitive...") or catastrophising about the future ("I'll have to take a massive paycut / do unpaid internships for years / remortgage the house..."). These persistent negative thoughts keep us in a constant state of anxiety and inertia, and can be a real obstacle to the imagination and a sense of possibility - which are crucial in being able to visualise and create a new future.
So how can mindfulness help boost your career change? Here are a few tips as a starting point:
1.) Remember that you are not your thoughts.
This concept blew my mind when I first started reading about mindfulness, about five years ago. Like many, I'd become very attached to my thoughts even (maybe especially?) the anxious, self-hating ones. If I wasn't my thoughts, what was I? Just a walking lump of human-shaped meat and grey-matter? We live in an age that has worshipped at the altar of the conscious, rational brain. And yes, our thinking minds are capable of incredible things. But they can also be our worst enemy - giving us the impression of an objective understanding of reality when in fact they are clouded in unconscious bias, assumptions and learned patterns of thinking. This all creates lenses that affect how we see the world and that we aren't even aware of most of the time.
Practising mindfulness and being aware of our thoughts can help us gain a little distance from them and stop us being caught up in their story. So when our mind starts shattering our dreams with catastrophising thoughts, we can see them for what they are - just stories and lenses that we've built up over time but which it's possible to see beyond when we're aware of them.
2) Be present and take it one step at a time.
We tend to think we're really good fortune-tellers. It's amazing how quickly, once we've set on a path, our minds will jump into the future predicting all kinds of outcomes - either wildly positive ("this is the answer to everything and will solve all my problems!)") or crushingly pessimistic ("it's going to be a complete disaster!"). Actually, modern psychology has shown that we are very bad at predicting how future events will affect us and our happiness. And this fast-forward pessimistic thinking is another thing that can hold us back in making changes as we've already seen in our minds-eye how (we think) it's going to work out.
Noticing when we are doing a bit of amateur crystal-ball-gazing and bringing our attention back to the present means that we are able to take that next small step towards change without hurtling forward into an imagined catastrophic reality. You WILL be able to find out what the future holds, but only by taking action out there in the real world and not in your head. And it probably won't look anything like how you imagined it (could you have predicted 10 years ago what your life would look like today?)
3.) Take in the good stuff
There's a pyschologist I love called Dr Rick Hanson who says that our brains are like sticky Velcro for negative feedback, but like slippery, wipe-clean Teflon for the positive. This really struck a chord with me - how many times do we replay an argument or mean comment from someone in our minds? I've spent whole nights watching repeats in my mind of a mis-judged comment or an angry retort, torturing myself with the cruel retrospective of my mind's own making. And yet, how often do we mentally revisit a situation when things have gone well or someone gave us positive feedback. It's often like water off a duck's back. What this means for the career-changer is that every rejected job application or fumbled interview performance feeds the lack of self-belief, creating a monster blocking the way to change, while any positive feedback along the way is sidelined.
Dr Rick Hanson's approach to tackling the Teflon/Velcro quandary is "taking in the good". If we aren't naturally pre-disposed to remembering positive experiences, we need to make a conscious effort to practice it. So this means when something goes well, we need to take stock, appreciate it and give ourselves the opportunity to let that positive experience drench into every pore of our being.
This means really hearing it when someone says something nice about us, it means noticing when we've had an achievement, however small, and giving ourselves credit. Doing daily gratitude practice has been shown to be hugely effective in improving our wellbeing and our capacity to take in the good. I spend a few minutes at the end of every day thinking about everything that went well, and all that I'm grateful for that day and find it a lovely way to round off a day. Even if it's been a tough day, there's always something you can find that's positive, even if it's something as small as having smiled at a shopkeeper or having made yourself a nice meal.
Neuroscience studies into the effects of mindfulness have shown that we can train our brains with regular practice thanks to neuroplasticity (the capacity of our brains to adapt and grow in response to our experiences). So the more we give ourselves some distance from our negative thoughts, remain in the present and start taking in the good, the more these practices become habits and gradually just become natural ways we engage with the world.
Most of us have had a lifetime of practising some of the negative mental habits described above, which is why it's no wonder so many of them show up in the challenging process of tackling a career change. But luckily we don't have to let our past habits determine our future.