Whether it’s redundancy, organisational restructure, a life changing event, or you wake up one morning and decide you want a change, there comes a time for many women when they reach a crossroads in their career and ask themselves ‘what’s next?’
Do I press the pause button and maybe take a sabbatical whilst I decide what I want to do? Do I retrain and make a complete career change? Do I change jobs and do what I currently do in another organisation? Or, do I take a leap of faith and pursue that business idea that I keep pushing to the back of my mind? These may be some of the questions that you are asking yourself right now.
When you are at a crossroads in your career, whether voluntary or involuntary, it can be a time filled with confusion, uncertainty and indecisiveness. It can consume your thoughts, causing you to feel frustrated, anxious, even fearful, not knowing what to do for the best. Fearful of the change that lies ahead.
If you need to make some tough decisions about your career but are stuck as to what to do for the best, reflecting on your responses to the following will help to provoke your thinking. It will help you to self reflect and develop an awareness of what it is that you might want to do next.
Fast forward to your 80th birthday
Imagine that it is your 80th birthday and you are going to be doing a speech at your birthday celebrations. In your speech, you’re going to talk about your achievements over the years. The things you’ve achieved over your life that you are proud of. The difference and impact you’ve made in the world and in other peoples’ lives.
Considering that a large chunk of the time between now and your 80th birthday is likely to be spent working, what do you want your story to be?
What is your career story to date?
What were your childhood dreams about what you wanted to be when you grew up? How much of those dreams have played out to be your reality? What was it about those roles that excited you so much as a child? When you think about it, what ignites a spark of excitement for you now?
Looking back over your entire career, when did you feel the most fulfilled and satisfied? What strengths were you using? What skills did you use the most? What were the situations when you felt in flow?
There is a lot we can learn from our career stories that can help us when we are making decisions about what we want to do next. What can you learn from yours?
What REALLY matters to you?
We want different things at different stages of our careers, a lot of which is influenced by our personal circumstances and environments. What you wanted in your early 20s when you were young, carefree and without responsibilities may have changed now that you are older with children, a mortgage and ageing parents to look after.
Or you may have got to your 40s or older, and found the things you were chasing after when you were younger, no longer have any meaning to you. Life changing events may have changed your perspective on the world, causing you to re-evaluate what really matters to you now.
Think about your core values and the things that add meaning to your life, the things that without, your life would be unfulfilled. How does this bear out in the work you do now, or the kind of work you’ve thought about doing in the future?
What will happen if you stay as you are?
If you are not proactive about your situation and stay as you are, what will happen? Will your hand be forced so that you have no choice but to act? Do you want to wait for that to happen, or do you want to prepare yourself and be in control?
In 2011 when I made the decision to take voluntary redundancy from the organisation I had worked in for 28 years, complete a MSc Coaching Psychology and start my own business, I wanted to be in control of my career. My role was being deleted and I could have stayed and be redeployed in to another role, but it might not have been a role that I really wanted.
I decided to take control and made the decision to exit the organisation. When deciding what I wanted to do, I looked back over my career at what I enjoyed and what I was good at. Coaching had always been an add on to my role as a leader and helping others to develop their careers and themselves was something that I was passionate about. I also thought about what was important to me at this stage of my life.
If you could wave a magic wand…
Putting aside any fears, uncertainty, self doubt, or other peoples’ views, if you knew you couldn’t fail, what is it that you would want to do next?
Mull over your answers to the questions I have posed and reflect on what comes up for you. Write down your responses including how you think and feel and reflect on what you have written. Use this to prepare yourself for answering the question ‘what’s next?’
Do you currently have to make a choice about what’s next for you in your career? If so, how will you approaching deciding what it is that you want to do?
First published on LinkedIn.
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