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Week 3: POSSIBILITIES - PAVE YOUR PATH HOW will you make your mark? Discover your career possibilities based on the impact you want to make.
Continuing from our Bold Career Primer Bootcamp this post covers what we discover in...Week 3: POSSIBILITIES - PAVE YOUR PATH HOW will you make your mark? Discover your career possibilities based on the impact you want to make.
Welcome Back to those who joined us last week as we covered the topic of crafting your career narrative.
In case you missed it… you can catch up on it here where we talk about the WHY, WHAT and HOW you need to create a clear and comprehensive story of your personal career journey and a compelling narrative for a successful career change
Today’s mini-training is all about Your CAREER POSSIBILITIES: PAVING YOUR PATH
We will cover:
- COMMON barriers / challenges people face and how to avoid them
- 5 SIMPLE STRATEGIES to help you uncover / know your strengths
- 3 SIMPLE ACTIONS you can take right away to start your career exploration
- Key things to consider as you start to pave your future career path
[ST] WHY WE STRUGGLE TO SEE POSSIBILITIES
This exploratory phase of your career transition is exciting because it’s all about discovering your possible career trajectories that are aligned to …
Who you are (your strengths and interests)
What you have (your skills and experience)
What you truly desire for your career (your career hopes/dreams and the impact you want to make)
In this phase, the sky’s the limit but many people struggle / fail to move forward because…
- they have no idea how to go about this and have a loss of direction, motivation and momentum
- have too many ideas, feel overwhelmed, confused or stuck in analysis paralysis
Allow self-limiting beliefs that hinder them from taking action - e.g. feeling stuck in a specific industry / role / sector … believing you need more formal education / certification … worrying about what others might think … lack of confidence … thinking it’s too difficult / risky …
WE COME UP WITH ALL KINDS OF REASONS NOT TO TAKE ACTION BC IT FEELS EASIER TO DO NOTHING UNTIL YOUR FORCED TO OR SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENS (burnout, major external change, etc)
The key to overcoming these barriers and the seemingly enormous task of figuring out your career possibilities is TO START WHERE YOU ARE, WITH WHAT YOU HAVE
Re-thinking and Re-purposing the skills and experience you already have as a basis for your career search / exploration when you have no idea what you could do
Creating your personal criteria for filtering ideas, assessing possibilities and evaluating your choices when you have too many ideas / options
Re-framing your thoughts and beliefs about what you already have and what you can already do to gain confidence, experience or skills for your new direction
Today’s mini-training will give you some key questions and practical tips you can do this week to get you started on track.
It’s about bringing INTENTION back to your career pursuits, understanding there will be some TRADE-OFFS if you want to focus on what really matters, and being OK and OWNING what you truly desire - a life and career that enables you to reach your personal and professional goals.
You don’t need to know exactly what you want, you just need to know what your priorities are (what are your goals, what’s most important to you, what’s non-negotiable)
Having this CLARITY puts you back in control of your future and will give you the motivation to be PROACTIVE about exploring possibilities instead of waiting for things to happen
The other important piece is KNOWING YOUR STRENGTHS and Grace is going to share 5 awesome ways you can uncover what yours are
[GC] KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS
We often undermine or overlook our greatest strengths when we haven’t had the opportunity to apply them in our work environment.
Your strengths include: areas you’ve studied, been trained in, or have had experience in through internships, college assignments, side projects, or the things your friends and family come to you for. It also includes your best traits: for example having tenacity, the ability to motivate people, being someone that people feel they can easily trust.
It’s not always easy to know our strengths but here are 5 ways to help you uncover them:
- Make A List - Brainstorm all the skills you currently have (and ever learned/developed) This includes your natural abilities (singing), trained skills (financial accounting), strengths (personality traits or responsibilities you have been recognised or praised about), activities/responsibilities you enjoy to do, and your personality traits.
- Analyse - Review everything you’ve written and circle the ones that you enjoy to do, or excel at, or want to do more of. As an option, you can also give a ‘grade’ (keep it simple - 1, 2, or 3) to indicate your level of experience/competency for each item.
- Ask Someone - Choose 5 people who know you well (idealy - a family member, friend, co-worker, boss, and professional contact) and ask them for an honest sharing of what they think your Top 3 strengths are. Remember to give them some context!
- Online Assessments - There are plenty of free ones online that can help to provide you deeper insights to your character traits and career anchors…
>> Inside our 6-week course our Personal/Professional Profile Assessment will help you along with our coaching.
[ST] EXPLORE OPPORTUNITIES
As Grace has shared, there’s alot of INNER WORK involved in any type of change - especially a career transition and exploration phase.
The flip side = EXTERNAL SEARCH which also takes time, effort and discipline (in terms of managing your time, committing to taking small but consistent action)
All too often, we’ve seen people in career transitions losing valuable time and motivation because they’re not actively searching or seeking opportunities.
Inaction breeds a vicious cycle of more inaction and less and less motivation.
You need a MULTI-PRONGED STRATEGY & APPROACH to your career exploration, and you need to PUT YOURSELF out there.
It will be uncomfortable; but if you’re serious about your bold career move, it’s time to get comfortable with being uncomfortable … and you’re gonna need some courage to go with that!
We all need SMALL WINS and the only way to get them is to GO AND GET THEM.
Some tough love for you :)
Here are some QUICK AND EASY WINS you can set out to do this week:
- MEET People - You’ll never achieve your bold career dreams from your desk or computer screen. You need to be making new connections, asking key questions, telling your story, and creating opportunities for serendipity to happen.
This week: Commit to reaching out to 3 people (by phone/email/in person) - someone you know, someone you want to meet, and someone who can provide insights
- RESEARCH Information - With the world’s information at our fingertips, there’s no excuse for “not knowing” what opportunities are out there. Utilise Google, online career resources, blogs and even courses to help you gain knowledge, tools, tips or skills that will help you to stay on top of latest job listings, emerging sectors, business trends, etc,
This week: Carve an hour to research possibilities and build your knowledge/insights in one/more areas of interest related to your possible new direction
- SOCIALISE On+Offline - Last week we taught you how to craft and tell a compelling story. Now it’s time to tell it! You already know the power of social media; the question are you using to your advantage for your career transition? If not, get out or online - with a clear intention. It’s easy to waste time when you don’t have a purpose.
This week: Decide how you’ll engage your existing (or new) networks by using....- Facebook to find communities / forums
- LinkedIn to stalk people or re-connect with your network for new connections
- Meetups to find events and networking opportunities
[GC] KEY THINGS TO CONSIDER / KEEP IN MIND
- Expand your horizons and then refine
- Identifying your career possibilities that are best suited to you depends on your ability to find the alignment point of What you have (your career “assets”) + What the market needs (what they value and are willing to pay for) + What ignites you (your interests, passions, abilities).
- Write your own job description
Some key questions to think about as you reflect on your career possibilities:
- Who do you want to help/serve?
- What problem do you want to solve (e.g. a cause, business challenge, or social issue)?
- How could you apply what you have to contribute to the solution?
- How do you want to make an impact/positive difference?
- What are things you really don’t want to do?
The final piece to this formula relates to the monetary side of things:
Your Financial standing (e.g. runway, appetite for risk, basic costs), Your Expectations (e.g. what are you willing to give up, how much, for how long), and Your Priorities (e.g. salary, seniority, experience, etc).
We’ll touch on this again in next week’s lesson on PLANNING …
We’ll also be talking more about How To Financially Manage Your Career Transition in our free webinars about de-risking your career change - more on that to be announced in the coming weeks so watch this space!
The greatest pitfall when it comes to exploring your career possibilities is limiting your prospects from the get-go by making assumptions about what is / isn’t possible and getting in your own way instead of casting a wider net first, and then filtering your ideas based on a key set of criteria that will help you to evaluate your options and make the best possible decision for your next career step.
Enjoy the process. There’s no certainty in anything.
[ST] CLOSE
As we’ve said, career exploration is an exciting experience
When you keep an open mind, focus on the possibilities, and have access to the right guidance, structures and support systems to help you move forward.
Today’s mini training hopefully gave you a solid starting point, 5 helpful strategies and 3 concrete actions you can take to start discovering your career POSSIBILITIES.
REMEMBER IT IS A PROCESS and THERE’s NO SUCH THING AS INSTANT GRATIFICATION.
We know CAREER EXPLORATION phase is where most people want personalised inputs + feedback + support.
That’s why this Bootcamp is really a PRIMER course for our 6-week course which takes you through everything we cover in these mini sessions but much much further…
Inside the course, we have modules, worksheets, LIVE group discussions and 1:1 coaching to dive deeper into…
- Exploration and evaluation of your possible career directions/trajectories … AND decision making!
- Creating your personal criteria for your ideal role / work environment / work scope and lifestyle factors
By the end of the 6 weeks, you’ll come out with a 60 or 90 day action plan for carving your path and piloting your ideas WHEREVER YOU ARE ON YOUR JOURNEY
So it could even be a 60-day ACTION PLAN for exploring and trialing a range of possible career opportunities before making your BIG BOLD MOVE.
AND YOU WILL BE FULLY EQUIPPED WITH …
Week 3 = FOUNDATION (Three R’s) - Repurposing your skills and Identifying your Transferable ones; Repositioning yourself for a career Reinvention - using everything you already have
Week 4 = ESSENTIALS (Three A’s)
Carving your path; How to craft a powerful career statement; How to change your story; What are your career assets; WHAT IS YOUR VALUE; How to package it together on your LinkedIn profile, professional documents and in interviews.
Also… your C-S-P = CV (revamp), Story (narrative), Personal Brand (identity)
Tribe Building > Who needs to know your story; Revamp Your CV (BONUS) > Weave in your story (experience-based); Personal Branding (BONUS) > Brand your story
No matter where you are on your journey right now, this course will help you move forward on your BOLD CAREER JOURNEY
Over to you Grace to share all our LINKS!!!
[GC]
If you want to sign up to our Early Interest list > bit.ly/boldcareer
If you haven’t signed up for our FREE 5-Day Challenge > bit.ly/bcmchallenge
If you want to join us for the LIVE Q&A right after this > bit.ly/careershiftersgroup
