It was only when I gave myself permission to ask this question that my work life started to change. Asking this question shifted my work life from good, or not-so-good at times, to awesome. Now I truly feel that my work reflects who I really am. I no longer feel like a square peg trying to fit in a round hole and I get to create what I bring to the world every day.
It wasn’t always like this. In the past, career advice usually came in the form of:
You speak various languages, you could be a translator
You’re good with people, have you thought about business development?
You can make a good argument, you should be a lawyer
All great careers, which I actually considered at some point. All of the advice acknowledged some of my strengths, which makes perfect sense and is something to absolutely take into consideration when looking to change careers. However, in my view, the first question to ask oneself before doing any other work around career change is:
What do you really want to do? Have you asked yourself this question recently?
Sometimes after new clients have seen me the first time, they tell me family and friends asked them what I said was the right career for them, but this is not the approach I use. I am looking to empower my clients to find their own answers! The journey I take my clients on is one of getting in touch again with who they really are.
Sometimes, there is a very clear answer to the question What do you really want to do? but there is fear to go in that direction and that is what we explore in our sessions.
Often, the answer is I don’t know.
I have posted about meditation on my Facebook page and even though it may not seem directly related to career change, it really is! You see, the moments of self-reflection is when inner wisdom appears. If you don’t know what your next career could be, self-reflection practices such as yoga, Reiki, journaling, meditation, art, forest bathing, you-fill-in-the-blank, can guide you to answers you had not thought of before. Reiki did it for me.
It may not happen on the first attempt, but when developing a self-reflection practice you start learning to trust yourself as resourceful instead of looking externally for answers. When you only listen to others’ well-meaning advice, it can keep you stuck at times, as the advice may make sense on paper but your soul is just not feeling it. You can look for the answers to come from YOU instead, especially when considering big life changes. After that, research can follow while you continue checking-in with yourself to ensure the path you’re taking feels like the right one.
Do you have a self-reflection practice you enjoy? If not, is there one you are curious about you could slowly start to incorporate into your life?
If you are one of those people whose answer to What do you really want to do? is I don’t know, and not knowing is keeping you up at night, let’s have a conversation. I can guide you to the answer sooner than you think!