The Career Life Coaching Newsletter

Regardless of where you are in your career life or how you got here, there are always opportunities to change your direction. We may stay in a job because we are overwhelmed by the options and are comfortable with the familiarity of what we are doing. It may feel safer to stay in a mediocre line of work than to risk the unknown challenges of leaving a job. Sometimes we are forced to re-evaluate our direction by unpleasant "wake-up calls". Rick Jarrow, Ph.d and author of Creating the Work You Love, said that the 4 D’s (divorce, downsizing, disease, and death) commonly jar us into re-thinking our career direction. Whether it is our personal experience or that of a loved one or colleague, any of these four tend to make us stop and think about our own lives. Are we happy? Is our work inspired? Are we contributing to making the world better in some way? You don’t have to be visited by one of the 4 D’s to change your career path. You don’t have to work a particular job, you can choose!

Do you yearn to do something but can’t quite figure out what it is? Do you have a glimpse of things you want to accomplish in your life but no clear picture? Messages we hear throughout our lives can dramatically influence our career paths. Say you are a lawyer in a prestigious firm and feel compelled to quit your job and head to a cabin in the mountains to hole up and write (as my friend and author Tama J. Kieves did and described her journey in, This Time I Dance). You have this inner dialog, "you can’t do that, you’ll starve" and "follow your heart ." This conflict of interests often blocks us from pursuing our dreams. Sometimes we don't even think about what our dreams may be, because we are stuck in the rut of day to day life. We have to uncover the messages in our minds that got planted there along our journey to adulthood. Sometimes we don’t even realize we have beliefs buried that are keeping our yearnings under wraps. Want to see for yourself if there are some hidden messages that may have impacted your occupational situation?

Get comfortable and quiet, take some long deep breaths and let go of the thoughts clamoring for your attention for a moment. Try to remember a time in your early life when you were at a family gathering and some well meaning adult asked you what you’d like to be when you grow up. What did you say and how did everyone react? If you don’t recall such an occasion let your imagination flow for a few minutes and try out the scenario. In my case, I thought it’d be glamorous and fun to be an airline stewardess. I recall a Thanksgiving dinner when my uncle asked me the question. My grandmother gave me the scowl of disapproval and told me in no uncertain terms that I should "get a proper education, not be a waitress on a bus in the sky." (Years later I tried for it anyway but didn’t meet the airlines minimum height requirements at the time.)

Another exercise to shed light on your social programming is to write down whatever words or phrases come to mind when you hear the word WORK. It is amazing how many negative connotations people come up with! Try this without censoring yourself. After you’ve exhausted your list, you might want to review it and consider which are true for you and which are not. When I did this exercise at Rick Jarow’s Anti-career workshop, I was surprised how many of my Dad’s sayings came out! Things like, "keep your nose to the grindstone" and "this job will lead me to an early grave". As I am writing this article my daughter in college is instant messaging with me. I just asked her what comes to her mind in association with the word WORK. She responded with "a sweaty bald man covered in soot pulling a huge chain" and "seeing myself staring at a wall clock waiting for the workday to end with the glow from my computer monitor reflected on my face." Both images she thought might be from things she’d seen on television. Whether from words, images, or sounds our nimble brains create associations. Uncovering them enables you to determine the truth from the fiction. You can discard the associations that bind your beliefs and free yourself to pursue your callings.

Does your family have expectations for your career? Could it be that you followed their footsteps and ended up in a job/career that wasn’t really your idea at all but maybe your Mom or Dad’s unfulfilled aspiration? What did you want to be when you "grew up?" Well you are still growing! "It’s never to late to be what you might have become." --e.e.cummings