"3 Pieces of Advice If You Are Considering Changing Careers"?

"3 Pieces of Advice If You Are Considering Changing Careers"

This month marks my one year anniversary of leaving a leadership role at Meta (after 20 years in advertising) and embarking on a career as an executive coach. After polling readers on what they most want to read in this month’s article, the top question that emerged was “what advice would you give to those contemplating a career change”??

1.Be Brave

I associate bravery with the ability to face difficult things. On my journey, the biggest difficulty I faced was challenging long held beliefs that were no longer in service to me. So many of us have “if only” thoughts that limit our experience of joy and fulfillment in life. For a long time I believed my lack of career fulfillment was something “out there”.? I believed if only my job circumstances changed, if I grew my role and scope, if I got a promotion, hit a certain amount of savings THEN I would have it all and be happy. And it’s no wonder - much of culture and society reinforces these external measures of success and the idea that having more equates to happiness. Growing up in the US as a first generation Asian immigrant, I was taught to have ambition, work hard and climb as far as I could go. As I embarked on this journey to change careers I had to pause and ask myself a difficult question - WHY I was climbing this narrow ladder of success? And did it feel right for me at this stage in life? At first, unwinding my identity from long held beliefs that security, approval and control came from outside of me felt scary and disorienting. But as I dove into inner work (thankfully with the help of coaches) I began to rediscover my sense of purpose and enoughness. I learned to challenge the stories I told myself around this "late" career change - that I would fail, that it would create disconnection, that I’d let others down if I chose to live my life a new and different way. Questioning my beliefs, identifying my stories and envisioning how the opposite could be true allowed me to drown out the noise and begin aligning to my purpose.?

2. Have Courage

My favorite definition of courage comes from Arthur Brooks, who says “courage is feeling fear but moving forward anyways.” In my training with The Conscious Leadership Group I’ve learned there are two types of fear. Toxic fear is disconnected from the present moment - it tends to be a stressful, anxiety ridden fear around an imagined future or an experience that you don’t want to repeat from the past. The type of fear that courage requires is a different kind of fear - something we call “above the line” fear. Above the line fear invites us to be present, to pay attention. It tells us that something new wants to be learned. Over the last year I have felt fear with every step forward - unwinding my identity from old beliefs, financial fear, and the vast unknown around clients that hadn’t materialized yet. In these moments I listened to the intelligence of my above the line fear and called in support. I asked for and acted on feedback. I built a learning agenda to enrich my skill set, shadowed mentors (like Deb Katz) and leaned on my coaching community. I also love the saying from Gy?rgy Konrád that “courage is an accumulation of small steps”. When we feel fear and move forward anyways, we begin to widen the aperture of how we see the world, one small step at a time. Rather than focusing on what we want to avoid and allowing toxic fear to keep us small - we instead expand our experience of the world and begin to move towards what we most want. As many of you readers know, my journey in changing careers was a series of small steps that happened over years. It began as far back as in 2016 as I voraciously consumed professional development books, searching for answers. I first signed up for leadership trainings with Conscious Leadership founders Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman in 2018. And I facilitated Conscious Leadership circles at Meta for four years (while getting coach certified and building a client base) before committing to a full time career as coach. With each step fear has been present, but I’ve allowed its intelligence to inform me while choosing to follow my energy and passion. I’ve learned to welcome fear when it arises, to trust that it means I am learning, and that growth and discomfort always go hand in hand.?

3. Stay Open?

Life is full of seasons. We can pretend we have control over what falls from the sky or what springs from the earth, or we can be in flow with what life hands us - season after season. My journey over the last year has been full of lessons around letting go of control and surrendering with an open heart. Before you think this is “woo woo” talk around not needing to try and handing the universe the reins, my advice is stay open with a healthy dose of intention and discipline. While goals are what we want to achieve, intentions are how we want to experience life. Knowing how you want to flow with what life hands you is a powerful anchor that grounds us in what we are here to do. My intentions were grounded in purpose and operated as my north star. I knew I was on purpose when I used empathy and storytelling while enabling understanding as an act of radical transformation - and I wanted to do this as a career with a sense of ease, aliveness and enoughness. Discipline was the act of honoring my “yes” and “no” and staying energetically whole through the practice of integrity. Learning and practicing the Whole Body Yes and the four pillars of integrity were discipline oriented practices I learned from The Conscious Leadership Group that kept me on the path to living in my genius. As I embarked on a new career with intention and discipline, I was then able to fully surrender to an invisible force which began to shape my reality. Around this time last year, I? joined The Conscious Leadership Group as a roster coach, began writing this newsletter, and clients started to flow in with ease. Some came from my relationships in marketing/advertising, others from The Conscious Leadership Group, and still others through social media and LinkedIn. Even when sales calls don’t work out, I always trust that as long as I’m grounded in intention and discipline, what’s meant for me will show up exactly when it’s meant to.?

Imagine you are a lighthouse. When you are brave enough to look inward and stand in your own enoughness, the lights begin to flicker on. You feel fear but meet it with courage, and your light grows brighter. You apply intention and discipline to these inner practices and your light shines so bright it’s nearly blinding. All you have left to do is to stay open and see who comes towards you.?

Be brave, have courage and stay open dear readers. I hope this article found you exactly when it was meant to. If it has, trust that very soon you'll be telling your own story about change.

Follow: @joycechen_coaching (Instagram) and?The Conscious Leadership Group

Juliana Sawaia

Corporate Happiness | Career Consultant | Speaker | Ex-Meta | | Measurement

1 年

Thanks for sharing Joyce Chen . As always, ot was inspiring

Andreina R.

Consumer Insights and Market Research at LinkedIn | ex-Meta | Brand Insights | Quantitative & Qualitative Market Researcher

1 年

What a powerful post! Thank you for sharing your experiences, it’s truly inspiring. I loved this! “My favorite definition of courage comes from Arthur Brooks, who says “courage is feeling fear but moving forward anyways.”

Christian Mortensen, ACC

Founder, Actualized Coaching 1:1 Life Transformation Coaching ???? Wim Hof Method breathwork instructor ???? You have it all within you ??????

1 年

Congratulations on living your truth authentically Joyce ??

Jenny Gadd

Partner & Principal Strategist

1 年

Wow, I can't believe that it's been one year! You are still missed but I have absolutely loved following your journey, Joyce! ??

Michael Di Girolamo

Founder / Managing Partner at Hey Wonderful

1 年

love your insight around bravery and enoughness! xox

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