Career Transition? Start at The Right Place

"People who've been fired or laid off, or are really flat about their current situation, are coming from a "world of work" mindset. They're still immersed in the sensations and day-to-day reality of their last/current job when they find their way to a coach. By using talents as the primary access, it really honors what's present and right in front of them."

   --Lisa Gates, Career Coach/Leadership Muse

Lisa is so right about this that it prompted a little continuation of What Should I Be Doing With My Life?

The Myth of the Cumulative Career

Whether you are someone making a transition--or a coach/HR person/friend who is trying to be helpful--realize that the natural tendency when making a career change is to build on where you've been.

It's natural because the most comfortable and socially acceptable way for us to live is in a linear fashion. We're taught to think and build upon what came before; that's the way you "get ahead."

This may, in fact, serve you well if you started out with the right career fit. But  you are making a change! It's a signal to start thinking about yourself, your life, and your career differently.

If it's helpful to find some catch-phrases to go with this, here they are:

1. If you are simply building on your existing career, then you are on a Transactional career path. In other words, more education, experiences, and opportunities in your current professional discipline will get you where you want to go. You exchange time and effort for more of what you're getting now.

2. If you seek to change your work life, then the change is Transformational. You are on a quest to morph into the new you (which is actually the real you). Linear thinking based solely upon past experience will make you hear voices that say, "You're earning a good living. You should be grateful (and you really should). Why change?"

Why? Because you know you have to. You are getting burned out, worn down, and disengaged as a result of your present condition. If the issue really isn't your work environment (which it could be), then you are right: the issue is you and your future satisfaction.

Here is a visual reminder as you begin to move ahead:

Up Next: The place where career elements intersect.

Comments

[Wally Bock]

Nice post, Steve, building on perceptive observations by Lisa. I like the transaction/transformational dichotomy, too. Let me add some more to this rich mix.

I've learned a lot from the work of Dr. Ken Nowack. He has identified four basic career patterns which he names Entrepreneural, Generalist, Managerial and Specialist. Each has different basic goals.
http://blog.momentor.com/category/career-paths

Not everyone wants to move up the corporate ladder. And not everyone wants to master a specialty or start new ventures or concentrate on their own learning. But some of us want to build careers in each of those ways.

[Lisa Gates]

Steve, thank you for continuing this conversation, and I love what Wally brings too. I think that when we're "awake" about our lives and our careers, we find ways to integrate what we've been with what we're becoming, whether transactional or transformational. We can use the past as information, but not as our GPS. Often, career transitions and searches get mired by trying to fix something in the past, rather than allowing the future self to draw the process forward.

[Steve Roesler]

Wally,

Thanks for the reference; always looking for new ways to view the career process.

Indeed, everyone has a different way of looking at work life, as well as individual aspirations. It seems to be that in order to be helpful, we can provide soundly-based models on which to evaluate one's work life and then become more intentional about it by taking into account the right factors.

[Steve Roesler]

Lisa,

You've made another valuable contribution: using the past as "data" vs. a GPS for the future.

We may have to start a little sidebar called, "Lisa said. . ."