Before I changed careers and when I was feeling pretty stuck, I landed on a great book by John Spencer Williams called F**k Work, Let's Play. It completely reframed work to me and helped me shake off a lot of the weightiness I was carrying around about "career" - even though, if I'm honest, I still didn't truly believe that kind of playful work-life was possible for me.
Read moreHow do you self-sabotage?
We all have those negative inner voices, our ‘gremlins’ or ‘saboteurs’, which can hold us back from what we truly want and leave us feeling stressed or anxious. It’s a normal part of being a human being, a function of our brains and the primal part of them that tries to keep us safe by keeping us small.
Read moreHow do you stay true to what really matters?
What does it take to turn against the tide of normalcy and social conditioning and to forge your own path?
My brilliant colleague Natasha Stanley has written a great piece on the Careershifters website on what she calls the "Renegade Mindset", and how to cultivate it for career change:
How to Change
Navigating a big life upheaval such as a career change is never going to be easy. There are times where the uncertainty feels too uncomfortable or the magnitude of the task too big to bear.
In those moments, the temptation can be to tell yourself your current work situation isn't too bad, that maybe you could just stay where you are, and take the path of least resistance.
But if we really want to make a shift, we have to learn to navigate change effectively, accepting that it's going to be difficult and drawing on strategies to ensure we can do what it takes.
Is remote working getting you down? Five features of healthy homeworking
Here in the UK, the end of lockdown is finally in sight, but with many employers telling their staff that remote working is now permanent policy (a survey of 278 execs by McKinsey in August 2020 found that on average, they planned to reduce office space by 30%), it’s important to put measures in place to protect your home-working wellbeing.
I’ve been WFH for a number of years now, and these are some of things I’ve found helpful.
Read moreWhy you need to find your flow
Ever feel like you’re pushing a boulder up a hill just to get through the working day? Do you feel utterly drained of energy by the time you clock off and beaten down by the job like you’ve just gone twelve rounds in the ring with Tyson Fury?
Compare this to how it feels when you’re ‘in flow’ – completely absorbed and energised by what you’re doing, and where just time seems to fly in this joyful state of immersion.
Read moreJob crafting: how to be happier in your work
I’m speaking to so many people at the moment who have been using the last few months of lockdown to reassess their work situation and what they want from their careers. It’s an irony and a challenge of the current climate that while the enforced pause has prompted many to realise that their current jobs have not been fulfilling them, it’s also potentially a tricky time to find something else.
So what can you do if you are desperate for more meaning in your work but, for now, you feel you have to stay put in your current job?
Read moreCarers deserve more than a clap
Why do we value the work of someone caring for our car more highly than the work of someone caring for our children?
This is the question I heard someone ask on the Radio 4 programme ‘Woman’s Hour’ this morning, and it really knocked me for six.
Of course, I’ve thought about this before – how what is seen traditionally in this country as ‘woman’s work’ – childcare, cleaning, possibly even teaching – is somehow seen as less valuable than the traditionally male pursuits of say, managing finances and fixing things.
Read more5 things you can do right now to future-proof your career
There’s no doubt about it, wherever you are in the world and whatever your circumstances, the future feels pretty uncertain right now. Nobody, not even our political leaders seem to know how long this health crisis is going to go on for, or how it is likely to affect our economy.
In the midst of these worrying times, it can be tempting to sit tight and to stay with what is known and safe, while we wait to see what is going to happen.
AND, what I’d argue is that the people who will thrive in the new reality in which we will eventually find ourselves will be those who have started preparing themselves and their career for the future.
Read moreMake this year count for your career change
[…] If you really want to make sure that this is the year that everything changes for you, you’re going to need a bigger and more fundamental shift in how you are approaching your career change. You need a rocket up the proverbial backside as big as the one I had when I became a mother last year - one that completely shifts your priorities and your beliefs about what’s possible.
Read moreWhy it’s time for you to be seen
Are you hiding your light under a bushel? Do you feel like a catherine wheel that’s never been taken out of its plastic wrapping and is sitting in a box somewhere in someone’s attic?
I write this in the UK on the day leading up to Guy Fawkes Night, when the sky comes alive with explosive beauty and colour, and normally quiet residential streets resound with a fizzing cacophony of bangs and booms.
Read moreHow to gather your career change support crew
Who’s on your team? Do you have people you can reach out to when the going gets tough?
If you’re planning a career change, you’ve got to get a supportive tribe around you. You probably wouldn’t try and organise a wedding all by yourself and a career change is potentially a far more complex and challenging project.
Read moreCareer Kaleidoscope: How is your life stage impacting your choices?
What are your career priorities right now and how do they differ from previous stages of your life? What do you think will matter to you in the future that isn’t so important now?
Last week I was in a card shop picking up a “new baby” card for a friend, when I realised I also needed to buy one for a funeral (of a very dear ex-colleague) and a wedding – all of which took place in the same crazy week. Also last week, I was speaking to a friend whose children are just about at the stage of going off to university, leaving her with the exciting, but also potentially daunting, possibility of completely re-shaping her life and self-image, no longer bound to the primary role of parent. Unsurprisingly, these experiences got me thinking a lot about life and the “big questions”…
Read moreBack to school: 3 important career change lessons
Whether or not you have children, there’s been a distinct “back to school” feeling this week. The morning air’s a little chillier, the supermarkets have all ramped up their stationery aisles, and there’s a general sense of the Summer fun coming to an end and that it’s time to get serious again.
When you’re unhappy in your work and wanting a change, this time of year is particularly laden with significance.
Read moreHow to make positive life choices: New Year lessons from a Jew-Bu (Jewish Buddhist!)
How would you judge your actions over the past 12 months? Did they bring you pleasure or pain? Success or failure? Happy connections or conflict? What was the impact you had on those around you and the wider world?
Yesterday was Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and although I’m not a practicing Jew, I was struck by an article my mum sent me suggesting a more progressive interpretation of the festival.
Read moreHow to stay motivated if you hate your job
Your alarm sounds and what’s the first thing that enters your mind? Not excitement at the promise of a brand new 24 hours on this planet, but instead a sinking heart and despair at the thought of yet another day in the office…
Read moreHow to give your work an energy injection
One of the big challenges I see my career change clients facing is finding the time and energy to make the leap when their existing work life is so draining. Often that’s the very reason they want to make a change, but it’s also the reason they haven’t yet made it.
Read moreThe importance of being playful
When it comes to managing our lives, and especially our careers, we can be so terribly, and stiflingly earnest. It’s like it’s this serious weighty problem we have to solve, and that the only way to solve it is to spend all our time making To Do lists and five year plans, and screwing up our foreheads and trying to come up with the most effective, efficient, sensible, pragmatic, responsible life choices. In other words, we feel like we have to be an ‘adult’ – and that this means leaving behind the playful, exploratory, intuitive way we went about our lives as children.
Read moreThe seven laws of (inner) peace
Inner peace… a hippy cliché, wildly unattainable in the modern world of Instagram and 24/7 connectedness, or a genuine practical possibility?
Having recently returned from a 10 day silent meditation retreat in the Himalayas, I’m actually inclined to believe the latter, although I admit I’m not quite there yet myself…
Read moreThe REAL meaning of success... and how to achieve it
Following my last blog about embracing failure, I was moved to write a few words about success - and how this too has been misinterpreted in our culture, in a way that really doesn't serve us and our happiness.
I write these words from a fancy 5 star hotel in Rajasthan that I’m currently living in with my boyfriend (his work is paying for it!), which is a very new experience for me. I’m more used to crumbling guest houses with damp in the walls, or maybe a “shabby chic” beach hut if I’m lucky (in Thailand we managed to land a DREAM beach house but it did also have walls full of termites and cockroaches!)
Being in this shiny, perfumed paradise, with a massive bed like a cloud and every need catered for is, of course, lovely but the novelty is wearing off.
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