Is your work-life balance squeezing you out of the equation?

Companies change…you change…the world changes. Then you wake up one day and know you’ve had it with your job - you just can’t keep going back every day.?

But you do. Again and again. For the money, or security or familiarity. Or because you don’t want the pain and frustration of a job hunt on top of everything else.?

Either way, you and I both know being stuck in a job that doesn’t fit is like trying to climb a mountain in a pair of pants that’s too small.

Guess what - despite recent news, most professional markets are HUNGRY for talent. You can find and win a job that will give you the balance you want.?

• Remote work: if you’re tired of dressing up, driving in, and stealing time and money away from your family for no reason that justifies the theft, you can find a job where you can work remotely
• A promotion to more strategic work: if you know you’re ready to build something great, but you look up the org chart and there’s no room for you, there are plenty of places that need your skills and experience.?
• A job filled with more of what you’re passionate about: if you want less of the grindy parts of the job you’re in, and want to get into something where what you’re passionate and great at are the core of the role, you can find it.
• A place where you can be ALL of who you are: if you sadly find yourself where who you are, how you think or appear are not really accepted, you can find a company where you can quit hiding away the parts of you want to embrace.?

The tension between getting up every day to do and be something you don’t want to be is horrible to hold inside you. It’s a bullet train to all kinds of bad things for your mind, body, spirit and relationships.

Everyone needs a paycheck, but you also deserve to be and do the things most important to you, in a way consistent with who you are and where you are in life today.?

And the process of making the change can be life-affirming, positive and powerful for you, and lead you to a job where you’re fully aligned.?

You Can Get What You Want

My first coaching client, more than 12 years ago, was in the same boat. For almost two decades she had been a Director of Software Support for one of the (then) most recognizable brand names in the enterprise software business.?

She is an amazing human being with a very unique approach to leadership. It pours from her heart and creates outsized results in the organizations she leads. For years that leadership style, her leadership style, was the bedrock of a very successful team that produced incredible results for their business.?

But over time her organization changed. New leaders started asking her to manage people in ways that were antithetical to what she believed and the walls were steadily closing in on her.?

Like many people, she stuffed the tension down inside for a LONG time. By the time I met with her to talk about helping her through a job change, she was burned out, visibly stressed, unhealthy physically and starting to doubt her value in the market.?

To add to the daily pounding she was taking at work, she couldn't make any progress finding something new. Everything she did got sucked up in the HR black hole. She was afraid she’d have to take a step back financially, change careers completely…or stick around in her current company and just learn to live with it.?

In a few weeks of working with me, she began to see herself clearly and articulate her unique style as the solution to difficult, painful business problems. Then she learned how to generate human-to-human business conversations with the right people.?

And she found an incredible new place. Here’s how:

She kept seeing open jobs in a company she was interested in, so many it seemed to indicate they had a turnover problem in their support organization. She crafted a personal, problem-focused note inviting a specific leader to coffee to chew it over.?

That coffee chat went so well she was invited to the office to meet several people. At the end of those meetings, the leader walked down the hall and had HR create a job for her:

• In an industry she had no prior experience in.?
• A short commute from her house (she thought she’d never find that!)
• Focused on fixing something broken using EXACTLY the skills and values that were most important to her.?
• With an increase in pay.?

So how do you get someone to tailor-make a job for you, instead of having to take whatever is there on the rack??

My client’s story above shows the way:?

• Do the math for them. Stop putting out data about yourself hoping someone else adds it all up correctly. Do the math for the people you want to work for (instead of the HR system); solve backward from their needs to connect you as a unique, can’t miss solution.
• Instigate a lot more of the right conversations.? Business centric, human-to-human conversations focused on the issues and challenges you have in common.
• With the right people. Not with HR people, corporate recruiters and other hiring manager proxies but with business people, decision-makers in your line of work who can make something happen.
• OUTSIDE of the long, boring, ‘stand-in-line-and-wait-your-turn’ process of online job hunting.? The single most important way to rapidly move past qualification calls and into serious consideration is to create connections that don’t force you to jump through the hoops of the HR system.?

These are how you find a place where you shine, and get what’s important to you whether that’s remote work, bigger work, a job in a company that thinks like you… whatever you want to focus on.?

Now obviously, that’s easier said than done, right??

You can’t just create a fruitful network that suddenly produces more of the right conversations where you’re the star solution. Can you?

Yep. You can.?

Using the road laid out above.?

It’s a road my clients have driven down many times - it’s very predictable if not always easy. I’d love to get in and drive down there with you. You drive, I’ll navigate.?

It’s your choice: you can stand in line, apply, interview, and hope you find a better fit.?

Or you can get behind the wheel and get there yourself.?

Are you ready?

If you’d like to talk through your search and see if my “Work-Life…Shift” program is right for you, PM me and let’s spend 45 minutes talking it over.?

During that call, we’ll look at how your job search could break out of the frustrating, slow pace it's on and and what your best next steps would be if you decide to pursue this strategy.

Spots are limited, and there’s zero obligation to work with me, but if we do end up being a fit I’ll invite you to become a private client of mine and we’ll step into simplifying, energizing and creating results in your search.?

Look forward to speaking with you!?

Scott