Create a life & career you absolutely love in 4 easy steps

For many of us, the start of the year prompts us to take stock, to reflect and reassess our lives. Perhaps you’re thinking about what you’d like to change in 2024. If that sounds like you, here’s your invitation to consider if you’re on the right path to pursuing your own personal sense of success and what matters most to you.

Over the past few years, we’ve collectively experienced all sorts of challenges which have impacted our perspectives on life and work. Sometimes the need for change comes from a range of factors – it could be a toxic working environment, difficult relationships with colleagues, a mis-match of the role you fulfil to your skill set & passions, health changes, parental or caring responsibilities, the desire for a healthier work life balance, a lack of meaning and purpose in your work.

Maybe you’ve been wanting a change for a while and this is the right time for it.

An unfulfilling job has the power to impact every aspect of your life.

We spend so much of our lives working,? it's important we do something we love. Whatever your reason, you might have concluded it’s time for a change but you’re asking ‘how do I go about that change?' ‘where do I start?’ Knowing you want change is one thing, knowing what to do about it is another entirely!

I’m a Professional Certified Life & Career Change Coach and my team and I work with professionals to support and guide them through career change. We provide 1:1 and group coaching as well as online workshops to make navigating your options as accessible as possible.

I know firsthand getting started on a new journey is daunting. I retrained as a Coach 6 years ago after a 12 year career in the Charity Sector and having qualified as an Occupational Therapist working in the NHS. I remember the fear of stepping out of my comfort zone into the complete unknown; could I be sure this was the right career choice for me? Would it give me the lifestyle and time with my family I wanted? Deep down, I knew this was the right move, but any change of direction will let doubt creep in. So, it’s for this reason I want to provide you with the exact framework we lead our clients through when supporting them through this season of change and transition

4 steps to help you create a life and career you love.

Step 1. Audit

Not a sexy word but an important one! The first place to start with making big career decisions is to carry out an assessment of what is and isn’t working in your professional life right now. If you could wave a magic wand, what would you love to see changed? This enables you to move forwards from an informed position, knowing exactly what you need from your next career move. You can access our FREE Career Change Checklist over on our website that will help you with this.

Step 2. Explore

Next, you need to spend some time uncovering what really matters to you in your work. This is where you can create your personalised career criteria - your blueprint for success. What would feature on your wish list for your dream career? Within this, you may want to identify themes such as your values, strengths and passions to build up a really clear picture of what you need from your next career move. By uncovering your career values, you’ll get clear on who you are at your core and what’s most important to you in your work. Our values inform our actions, decisions and behaviours, so they play an important part in this career change journey. Often, clients come to me when something doesn’t feel right in their professional lives. They might not be able to put their finger on it but often it’s the case that their work doesn’t enable them to express their values and this creates a sense of dissatisfaction and lack of fulfilment. So, take some time to explore what really matters for you - everything from the values you want to express in your work to the skills you want to use to the work life balance you aspire to.

Step 3. Dream

Here, you generate a range of potential career options to research further. You’ll explore the pros and cons and reflect on the day to day reality of pursuing these opportunities. By overlaying the insights gained from the exploration stage against these options, you can filter them down into those that offer the very best potential fit, so you use your time and energy in a pro-active way to pursue the right opportunities. For example, if you want to have a healthier work life balance, to what extent would a role involving lots of travel provide a good fit for you?

Step 4. Discover

Finally, with a clear sense of direction about your next career move, knowing exactly what you want, this is where you pull all of that learning together and carve out a step by step action plan for the coming months. You’ll want to identify what you need to do in order to get from where you are now to where you want to be in pursuit of your chosen career. Some of the things you might like to consider could include: reworking your CV, updating your LinkedIn profile, reaching out to your contacts & networks, researching companies of particular interest to you, carrying out interview prep, researching further training etc.

Of course, making a significant change in our professional lives isn’t just about the practicalities. Strategy and mindset go hand in hand for creating success. Our confidence and mindset massively affect how to approach change, and success is more likely if we approach it with the frame of mind that will encourage us to pursue the right actions.

I know some people will get this far and think,

‘I’d love to do something new, but I can’t just give up work and change careers, it’s not practical’,

and that’s a valid response, but I want to encourage you to allow yourself to think a step or two beyond this. Instead of writing off potential futures, why not spend just an hour or two exploring your options? You’re not committing yourself to anything but you are allowing yourself the opportunity to reflect.

If you choose to follow your dreams and find out more about that idea you have, then you’ll have the beginnings of an action plan to start your journey, even if you’re not sure what that might look like yet.

If you'd like to find out more about this process and try out some introductory exercises to kick start your journey in this, then I'll be covering exactly this in our next free online workshop taking place at the end of February. Do join us if you can, we’d love to have you!

And if you’d like further support with your career change journey, you can book in for a completely free discovery call to explore the support options available.?