Reinvent Your Career Today

Are you stuck with mid career crises? Reinvent your career today.

Today new technologies, increased competition and downsizing have eliminated many jobs. Managed care has severely impacted the way medical and mental health services are provided. With fewer people to do the work and increased competition for jobs, we are putting in more hours than ever before. Besides burnout and depression, other job stresses come from doing work you are not suited for, or working in an environment that is not conducive to your temperament, values and the quality of life that you desire. 

If you think you need to find another job or change the direction of your career, it is important to first go through a process of self-assessment, focusing on your options, and lastly, developing a specific action plan to get you where you want to be.

Assessment

What are the values, ideals and ethics that you hold near and dear? You need to display these in your work if you are to feel satisfied and fulfilled. Be clear about the compromises you can make without suffering. What are your special abilities and skills? What do you consider to be your best traits and characteristics? What are your areas of interest in your work and in school? How do you make decisions? Are you a "big picture" person or one who likes to focus on the details? Personality assessments often can help with this process.

Environment

What kind of environment do you want to work in? This includes geographic location and proximity to home, hours that you work as well as clothes that you wear to work and a description of the organizational culture. Do you want flex-time or would you like to work from home? Do you want to be self-employed? What does your office space look like? What kind of people do you want to work with? Do you prefer to work independently or within a team environment?

Focusing

After you have completed a thorough assessment of your values, skills, abilities and the environment that you want to work in, consider the content of the work itself. Do you like to counsel others? Do you like to teach? Do you like to write or conduct research? Is administration and policy-making your passion? Do you want to manage others or work independently? Make a list of the things you like about your work and the things you don't like. Be specific. The Strong Interest Inventory is a good instrument to help focus your interests.

Next you need to match your abilities and skills with the needs of the marketplace. The competition for jobs today is very stiff. Brainstorm the general career areas that fit your interests. Conduct informational interviews to determine what it is really like to work in those areas. What kind of skills and experiences do you need to have to secure a job in those fields? Are you willing to do what it takes to make that happen? What about salary requirements?

Perhaps after conducting the self-assessment and focusing, you decide you really like the work you do and only need to change the environment. If you leave a particular career and decide you don't like your new job, it will be more difficult to return to your former career. It is crucial to go through the self-assessment and focusing process before you make a move.

Action Plan

Once you know what you want to do, develop a specific plan to get there. If you decide to stay put, create a career development plan that includes acquiring the skills and experience you need to further your career. Write your goals and objectives. Update your resume. Network with those in positions to further your cause. A career consultant can help keep you motivated, focused and in pursuit of your goals.

Summary

If you want success in your career, you must have confidence in your ability to solve problems, practice independent thinking and decision-making and be determined to find the answers. Don't give up! Start with a thorough assessment of your values, skills, interests and abilities. Focus your efforts on your areas of interests and abilities, and develop an action plan by specifying goals and objectives. It is only by focusing on your strengths that you can truly obtain fulfillment and success in your career. A professional career consultant can provide objective feedback to help keep you motivated and on-track.

Also read about Coaching, Mentoring & Counselling here.

Are Talent Leaders Only Using Half Their Resources?

Are Talent Leaders Only Using Half Their Resources?

Peter Weddle, CEO of HR and employment specialty publisher Weddle's LLC, said American workers - including talent managers - are struggling to achieve career success with half their brains tied behind their backs.

"Career success begins with a good understanding of who we are as individuals. Our characteristics, believes, principles, values, all of that you have to know before you can figure out what you're passionate about. The problem is that information doesn't come to us intuitively," Weddle explained. "We have to work at understanding what that unique person inside us is all about."

He said the challenge is that every person/worker has a preferred way of thinking about thinking about things. Creative people rely more on the right hemisphere of the brain and seldom use the left. Analytical people rely on the left hemisphere and seldom use the right. Thus, we end up only using half of our inherent talents.

His book, Recognizing Richard Rabbit: A Fable About Being True to Yourself, attempts to make it easier for the average worker to find out who he or she is, what he or she is trying to become and how to tap into inherent talents. Encouraging the reader to use creative energy to try and answer those questions, the book also offers a self-interview to explore the analytical side of the brain and reason through questions that may reveal what a person values, believes in and hopes to leave behind as a legacy at work.

Some of the questions include: Does the significance of doing something truly different influence how you feel about it? Are you affected by what you will have to accomplish in order to make a difficult change in your life? And can you really change the circumstances that affect your day?

The book's premise is based on research done by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi for his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Weddle said during the course of his research, which involved thousands of interviews with high- and low-profile workers, Csikszentmihalyi found that no matter what workers did or how long they'd been doing it, people often had optimal experiences when they were confronted with a meaningful challenge and then stretched to their limits and beyond to meet that challenge or accomplish a goal.

"The single greatest milieu in which that kind of goal stretching occurs is at work," Weddle said. "Recognize yourself in both dimensions of your life. Of course you want to be authentic in your personal or social relationships. You want to be authentic with your family and friends. If you do that, you experience an emotional state called joy. That's only half the story. If you're equally authentic and passionate about who you are, and you bring that person to work, you will experience a cognitive state called happiness.

"The bottom line is, be joyful, but be happy too. Don't forget that work is just as great an opportunity to express your own true self as the rest of your life is. HR people talk about work-life balance as if work has to be balanced with all the good things that happen in life. That's true, but it's also important to balance your life with all the good things that can happen at work.

"The fundamentals of our economy may be in trouble, but the fundamentals of our character are not," Weddle said. "This is the very moment when working strong is just as important as living strong. If you can do that in this environment, you can do that anytime. And that will serve you well for the rest of your working life."

[About the Author: Kellye Whitney is managing editor for Talent Management magazine.]