With life-long employment no longer existing, the chances are that we will need to reinvent ourselves at one point or another in our careers. As a matter of fact, traditional employment is declining and the gig economy is inevitably changing our careers.
Re-structuring has become the national sport for all those companies who are struggling to adapt in the world we live in. Gone are the days where redundancies affected only the under-performers. Today, everyone is at risk. So, what would happen if your job vanished?
How about you reinvented yourself before someone else decided you are dispensable? And how about you took the leap before someone else decided its time for you to move on?
Managing the emotional baggage that comes with a career transition is daunting. But here there are some tips coming from someone who has mastered her own career reinvention:
1.- FIND YOUR <IKIGAI>
Finding your IKIGAI is not easy. It requires taking a hard look at oneself in the mirror and make some assessments around what you’re good at, what value you can bring to the world, and what you want to spend the rest of your life doing.
A great deal of self-awareness is needed here. You have to know oneself, your competencies, strengths and what combination of skills you can offer to the world that can get paid for. Your uniqueness is exactly what you bring to the table. Discover it.
Don’t forget to connect with your core values when defining the “what’s next”. Our values are our drivers, our motivators, and magic happens when they align with our goals and our vision.
2.- BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND
Put some thought around “where” do you want to go, “what” do you want to be or do and “who” do you want to become. Then, lay down all the options you have which will make that dream a reality.
Choose those ones that will create the bigger impact and set some goals.
Love goal setting or hate it, the truth is nothing happens unless goals are set. And, they need to be written down! A 2015 study by psychologist Gail Matthews showed when people wrote down their goals, they were 33% more successful in achieving them than those who formulated outcomes in their heads.
3.- TAKE ACTION
If you don’t take action, something terrible will happen … nothing!
To be successful, you have to do what successful people do, and successful people are highly action oriented. All those who in your eyes “have made it”, haven’t let a day go by without taking constant and massive action towards their goals and have done whatever it takes in order to achieve them.
When you take action, you trigger all kinds of things that will inevitably carry you to success. You let people know you mean business and you’re not just all talk. People with similar goals come into your life, the journey gets started and opportunities start to line up.
Don’t wait for the right time to make a move as there isn’t such thing as “right” time. Don’t wait to be ready to make a leap because life will always give you a reason to keep holding you back.
Magic does happen when you stop waiting and you start taking action. The time is now.
4.- DO SOME MINDSET WORK
Career reinvention is a journey that cant be made with a weak mindset. Intelligence and talent alone will not bring you success. Be sure about it. A success mindset will. This is the real game changer.
If you are 100% committed to change your career, your priority must be to cultivate the right mindset. You will need to have a strong resilience so to stand back up when you fall. You will need to belief in yourself during the dark days. You will need to accept failure as it is part of the process and learn from it.
You will need to keep on daring yourself daily to step out of your comfort zone since no growth happens in comfort. You will need to have a vision and have this insatiable hunger to make it a reality. You will have to embrace change as it will transform you in the new person you want to become. And you will need to be responsible for keeping on learning, improving and up skilling yourself.
If your mindset is not all there yet, here there is what you could do to start creating a shift:
a. Learn from the best. Reading the biographies of the people who inspire you is a great way to start. If they did it, why wouldn’t you?
b. Ditch your negative self-talk. You have to be your own biggest fan and cheerleader yourself all the way! If you want your future clients or employers to start believing in you, you will have to believe in yourself first. If you struggle in this area; trust a coach!
c. Visualize success; visualization is more powerful than what you think! To your brain, there is no difference between what your eyes are seeing, and what your mind is seeing. Your mind and your body take both of those pictures and label them as the same thing. This is very powerful because you can begin to use your visualization to convince your mind and body that everything you want is already a part of your life. This begins to put your body and mind into alignment with achieving that outcome you are after.
d. Protect your mindset from toxic people, information and habits.
TIP 5- MIND YOUR NETWORK!
Did you know that you are the average of the 5 people you spend most of your time with?
Aha! The power of the people you associate with is incredible. They determine how do you think and how do you act and, consequently, how far you will get in your own journey.
Surround yourself with positive people who believe in your dreams, encourage your ideas, support your ambitions, and bring out the best in you.
The company you keep does have an impact and influences your choices. So choose carefully and be selective!
With an ever increasing pressure to reinvent ourselves so to keep up with a continuously evolving and employment landscape, we feel distressed and restless. We were not built to reinvent. We were built to survive and last. The good news is that reinvention is a skill that can be learned and mastered.
As we keep gaining ownership of the direction we want our career to take and the shape we want it to have, don’t wait for the right opportunity, create it!