1. Start Strong & Build a More Sustainable Approach 

During career transition, there are many factors outside of your control. Yet, when it comes to how you spend your time, the choices you make may help you or hinder you. If you’re feeling stressed by time pressures or frustrated with the pace of your progress, begin with this practical step.

Map out your week and what you do when in that week. Not what you think you should do. Not what you want to do or expect yourself to do. Base your map on what you actually do in your week.

Most of us are over-optimistic about what we can complete in a particular time-frame. Begin by taking a realistic look at where you are now.

Write in all the things you already do in a typical week. Sleeping, eating, family time, household activities, caring activities, leisure and social time, work time, and so on. What’s left? How much time do you currently have to focus on your career change goals?

Unrealistic expectations fuel discouragement. If you begin by considering what is sustainable within the context of your current obligations you immediately put yourself in a better position. 

There will be opportunities to make adjustments. But you will start stronger if you begin from your current reality. 

2. Structure your Time to Reduce Distractions 

Once you have a better understanding of what is possible and sustainable, you can evaluate what to change. What do you already know about what works? What will you prioritize?

For example,  think back on what you already have experienced. When you found previous positions, what were the most fruitful activities? For most career changers, connections are one of the most important factors in finding opportunities. This can be challenging if you are moving into a new field. 

If you’re still unsure of your direction, or it’s been a while since you’ve changed your work, it’s often helpful to get feedback on your ideas so that you can come up with a workable strategy customized for you. Choosing how you use your time is not simple. It requires thoughtfulness and discipline, both of which are more difficult in the context of uncertainty.  

Now that technology and automation play such a large part in career change and job search, you need to find ways of handling endless sources of distraction. It’s easier than ever to be busy without necessarily making progress. 

 Make your time work for you by finding a structure that supports you. For example, some people use a timer to help them limit the time spend on research or social media. 

Any of these activities can support your career goals. But it’s important to self-monitor. Does time reading various posts on LinkedIn mean that you run out of time to invite new people to your network, or engage in other activities that have worked for you in the past?  Although advances in technology have changed how you do things, the fundamentals remain. Building relationships and your communication skills are still key. 

3. Build in Time to Reflect and Renew 

So far we’ve considered time-bound goals as a way to both stay on track by beginning with more realistic expectations and as a means of dealing with multiple distractions. Both of these can be of benefit. But for career changers, it is not enough. 

Career transition is not a linear process. In her in-depth research with voluntary career changers (see her book Working Identity) Herminia Ibarra concluded that career reinvention was a “messy trial-and-error process of Iearning by doing.”

So how what does this mean for you and how you use your time? It means that it is essential to build in the space for reflection. Don’t pack your schedule so tight that you don’t have time to periodically step back and review the big picture of the changes you want to make in your work-life.

Look for patterns and ask what is helping and hindering you in moving closer to your goals. It’s essential that you learn as you go. Try some of these reflection questions:

• What am I noticing?
• What surprised me [this week]?
• What do I still need to find out more about?
• What is clearer now that before I had these conversations/completed this activity? 
• What might I stop doing or begin doing?

This time to reflect and renew is important not only for your wellbeing, but also for insight. It allows time to attend to feedback you are getting from your environment and the outcomes of your activities. 

In the context of the uncertainty that is typical of significant change experiences, you will invariably make decisions with less information than you would prefer. It’s important to harness not only what you know and observe, but also your intuitive knowing. Make time for both.

A realistic appraisal of what’s possible for you in your situation, and structuring your time to reduce distractions will both help you to use your time more effectively during your career and work-life transitions.

But setting time-bound goals and choosing how to use your time is not a “once and done” effort. Build in the space to reflect and renew so that you create opportunities to respond to what you are learning as you go.

Jennifer Bradley

Jennifer Bradley helps professionals get unstuck and move forward in their career and work life. She offers individual coaching and consulting, leads workshops, and writes about personal and professional transitions.

positivetransition.com

The post Are Time-Bound Goals a “Waste of Time” During Work-Life Transitions? appeared first on Positive Transition.

Are your considering voluntary career change? In the S.M.A.R.T. model of effective goals setting, the fourth criterion is R for realistic. In this article, we consider the relevance of realistic goal setting for career changers. 

If you’re thinking about a new direction for your work, you’re not alone. According to a 2021 poll, more than half of the participants (selected to represent the US population), reported that they anticipated changing jobs in the next few years. 

How Do you Know if your Career Change Goals are Realistic? 

Not everyone who responds to a poll saying that they anticipate job and/or career change will end up doing so. But if you’re thinking of making changes, it’s important to ask yourself if your goals are realistic and how the choices you make affect the outcome. Read this article for practical ideas that you can apply to your own career change.   

The “What” and the “How” of your Career Change Goals

Here are two aspects of setting realistic goals to consider. The first one focuses on the “what” of your career change goal. What is the outcome you want? The second one focuses on the “how” of your career change goal. What is the process you will use to get there? Let’s explore the “what” dimension first.  

How to Evaluate the “WHAT” of your Career Change Goal

According the the S.M.A.R.T. model of effective goal setting, goals should be realistic. For career changers, the fundamental question is “what is the outcome you want from your career change?” This is the starting point from which to ask the follow-up question about whether or not your goal is realistic.

Considering these questions asks you to focus attention both on what you want to achieve by changing career, and on your views about what is practical for you. Choosing realistic goals requires both self-awareness and taking action to move closer to your desired outcome.

Let’s begin with awareness. How clear are you about what you want to be different after you make a change in your work-life? Of the things that you want to be different, which are more important?

If you are still clarifying your desired outcome, you might want to revisit some of the questions already discussed in previous posts on choosing goals that are attainable and measurable. 

Even when it is challenging to answer these questions, it is a way of increasing your awareness. Your starting point may be one of confusion. For many career changers, clarity emerges from taking action.

That doesn’t mean that you should jump in do things in a haphazard fashion. You can use a tool such as gap analysis, described below, to help you move closer to choosing the goals that are right for you. 

A Tool to Explore the “HOW” of your Career Change Goal 

Choosing more realistic goals involves not only paying attention to your desired outcome, as discussed above, but also looking at the route map to get there. What will work for you in your situation?

Gap analysis is one easy-to-use tool that to help you to think through the “how” of your career change goals and choose which actions to take first.

Three Essential Questions 

Complete a gap analysis by writing a response to the following three questions:

• Where am I now – point A
• Where to I want to be – point B
• To get from A to B, what needs to happen?

Write a brief description of where you are and where you want to get to. You now have two “markers” to work with. Sketch out the things that need to happen if you are to move from point A to point B. By completing this gap analysis, you have already gathered valuable information.

If you’re at an early stage in your career transition, many things will still unknown. Don’t let that stop you. Simply write as much as you know now. Include a note of the questions you have. Maybe there is research you need to do. Maybe the answers to some of your questions are not yet knowable.

Even if you find you still have many unanswered questions, at least now you have a more complete view of your current situation and the changes that are needed. This will help you make better decisions.  

The Challenges of Doing a Gap Analysis 

One of the downsides of doing a gap analysis is that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by “all that is unknown” or “so much to do.” Maybe you discover that the gap between A and B is bigger than you anticipated. Maybe you clarify the changes you want to make, but don’t yet know how to implement them. Remember that there is help available. 

Talk your ideas through with a trusted colleague or coach who can not only provide encouragement, but also expand view and help you “see blind spots.” Learn from people already in the type of roles that you are interested in. The nature of human information processing means that we are adept at misperception. An outside perspective is often invaluable. 

A gap analysis is one way of clarifying the “how” of your career change and arriving at a more realistic view. If you take the time to do it, you give yourself the opportunity to be more prepared. Once you have described the gap, you can now gather resources that can help you accelerate your progress. 

Summary

Career change is influenced by a complex web of individual and environmental factors. There is no simple formula to follow to decide what is realistic for you in your situation. Most of the choices that career changers make involve trade-offs. 

But by asking questions about both the “what” of your goals (the outcome you want) and the “how” (your plan of action) you will be more informed about which goals are realistic for you at this time in your career and work-life. 

In the final post of this series on the S.M.A.R.T. model for effective goal setting for career changers, we will discuss T for time. Choosing how to use your time in ways that advance your progress is one of the biggest challenges of career transition. 

Jennifer Bradley

Jennifer Bradley helps professionals get unstuck and move forward in their career and work life. She offers individual coaching and consulting, leads workshops, and writes about personal and professional transitions.

positivetransition.com

The post How to Evaluate Your Career Change Goals for Faster Progress appeared first on Positive Transition.

The first two of this series of posts on goal setting for career and work-life transitions were about the first two criteria of the S.M.A.R.T goal model, S for specific and M for measurable.  This post asks if A for Attainable (the third criterion of the SMART model of effective goal-setting) is helpful for career changers.

A for Attainable: Do Career Changers Benefit from Choosing Attainable Goals?

Given that uncertainty is very much part of career transition, does it even make sense to talk about attainable goals? We begin by asking what we mean by attainable career change goals. Then we look at what else you should consider to make your goals more relevant and more effective.

What exactly do we mean by attainable goals? One meaning of attainable is achievable. On the surface, choosing career change goals that we believe are achievable sounds rational. You don’t want to waste time and energy on goals that are not going to be attainable. 

For example, some roles require specific abilities. To train as an airline pilot you need to pass specific vision tests. So whether or not a goal is attainable is defined not only by what you believe you can do, but also the criteria defined  by governing bodies and potential employers. 

Choosing what is attainable is often not as straightforward as the example above. A more nuanced approach is needed. To keep your goals relevant, it’s important to consider both your personal perspective and the context. 

Consider the Context

As well as meaning“achievable,” attainable also means “arriving at.” This is a reminder to consider both what you believe you can do and external factors that may be outside of your control. Paying attention to the context is critical. So what other questions will help you to choose goals that are as relevant and useful as possible?

As discussed previously, how you feel about your goals is important. One question to ask here is whether your attainable goals are connected to what’s most important to you in your work and your life. Are your goals aspirational as well as attainable? Returning to the fundamental questions of what you value most can be particularly useful when you reach difficult decision points. 

There are two more qualities that you can use to evaluate the usefulness of your goals. Ask yourself if your attainable goals are also agile and actionable. We will return to these two qualities in upcoming posts when we discuss the final two dimensions of the S.M.A.R.T goal model, R for realistic and T for time-bound.

Jennifer Bradley

Jennifer Bradley helps professionals get unstuck and move forward in their career and work life. She offers individual coaching and consulting, leads workshops, and writes about personal and professional transitions.

positivetransition.com

The post How to Make your Career Transition Goals More Attainable (and More Relevant) appeared first on Positive Transition.

Last time we talked about the first dimension of S.M.A.R.T. goals, having specific goals for your career change. This article is about the second criterion in the S.M.A.R.T. goal model, having goals that are measurable. We will consider when measurable goals can help you with your career transition and ways to go beyond typical uses.

The Relevance of Measurable Goals for Career Changers  

How might you as a career changer benefit from choosing measurable goals? Here’s one example. Say you are summarizing your accomplishments for your resume or CV.  Assuming that, for now, both are relevant to a job you want, ask yourself which of the two statements below work best?

a) My team reduced errors by 70% in 6 months,” or 
b) I’m a good team leader and a skilled communicator. 

Both of these statements may be “true” for you. It may be that the skills of team leadership and effective communication described in (b) were pivotal to your success. But if you use measurable outcomes to communicate your accomplishments, you make it easier for potential employers to quickly match what they need with the skills you describe. Quantifiable data point to a more credible story.  

What other types of measurable goals might be relevant to your career transition?  Some things such as time and money are easy to quantify. (We will consider time later as it is identified as a separate criterion for effective goals in the SMART model). 

Other easily measurable goals include criteria, such as salary range, commuting distance, and size of organization that you prefer to work in. These help you choose where to focus. A different category of quantifiable goals might be actions you take, such as the number of people you add to your network or the number of employers you research. But sometimes you need to go beyond measurable goals. 

How to Go Beyond the Limits of Measurable Goals 

The extent to which quantifying your goals is useful to you will depend on where you are in your transition and your preferences for ways of working. But you don’t have to limit yourself to one approach. By adding two other dimensions to the measurable criterion for effective goals, you can enrich the process. Consider also why and how your goals motivate you and are meaningful. Here’s a way to get started. 

What Makes these Career Change Goals Meaningful for Me? 

There are many planned and unplanned reasons that professionals decide to change career. Maybe you are changing to something that you’ve always dreamed of doing and you have decided that now is the right time.

On the other hand, your decision may be a response to changes in your circumstances that you didn’t choose. Or maybe you want to get away from a toxic work environment or choose work that is more aligned with your current priorities. Or perhaps it’s a combination of factors.  

It’s important to clarify this for yourself. Take some time to reflect on what your decision is based on. Ask yourself what is the difference you are hoping for by changing direction in your career.

Find a trusted conversation partner such as a colleague or coach who will listen to you and ask clarifying questions without imposing their views.  Build on your past experience. Consider what was important to you when you began your current role. What were your hopes then? What are your hopes now? What has changed?  

If you are dissatisfied or unhappy at work, it may feel like “anything is better than this.” 

Having the opportunity to hear yourself “talking out your thoughts”  is often very helpful in surfacing what is most important and meaningful for you as you develop your vision for your future. Finding ways to stay motivated during the transition process is considered next. 

How do I Rekindle my Motivation?

It is common for career transitions to take longer than individuals anticipate. It can be challenging to stay motivated. Based on their research Richard Boyatzis and his colleagues propose that sustainable change is more likely if we ask not only “what we want to do,” but also “who we want to be.” 

If you find that the quantifiable goals you chose, although initially motivating, now induce feelings of discouragement or negative self-evaluation, it is time to expand your perspective. 

Try returning to the question of “who you want to be?” This can open up new possibilities.  By switching from data-based goals to your aspirations, you can expand your perspective and engage your creative thinking. You may uncover different ways to move forward.

SMARTer Career Change Goals: Measurable + Meaningful + Motivating

Whether or not you were already familiar with the SMART goal model you already have plenty of experience with goals. As a career changer, goal-setting is under your direction. The SMART model may be helpful, but it’s important to adapt it to your personal situation.

As one of the criteria for SMART goals, measurable goals have their place. Expanding the M for measurable to include M for meaningful and motivating, your experience of goal-setting will be richer and more useful in your career transition.

Jennifer Bradley

Jennifer Bradley helps professionals get unstuck and move forward in their career and work life. She offers individual coaching and consulting, leads workshops, and writes about personal and professional transitions.

positivetransition.com

The post How to Improve Career Change Goal-Setting for Easier Work-Life Transitions appeared first on Positive Transition.

How important are they? What difference do goals make? Do I need them? How do I choose the right career goals for me? Over the next few weeks, we will explore some of these questions. 

If you have some of these questions about your own career change, my hope is that this series will help.

Since it’s frequently used, our starting point will be the S.M.A.R.T.  model of goal-setting. 

As a reminder, according to this model, effective goal-setting requires goals that are:

• specific
• measurable
• attainable
• relevant
• time-bound

This popular model is simple, easy to recall, and understandable. Its criteria are, at least partially, research-based.

But will SMART goals help you with your work-life transition?

Let’s begin with S for specific goals.  

How Might Having a Specific Goal for Career Change Be of Benefit?

How might making your goal specific help? Career change is often stressful. You may be asking if having a specific goal will help you to progress more quickly and reduce overwhelm? 

Choosing a specific goal is a way of narrowing your focus and making it easier to choose how to allocate your time and effort. Being specific may help you to plan a more efficient search.  

But if you’re struggling with specific goals, consider this question: 

What am I hoping to get from setting a specific goal? 

The next question to explore is what you can be specific about at this point in your transition. We’ll consider that next.

What Can you Be Specific About at This Phase of your Carer Transition?  

When it comes to career and work-life changes, there are many ways to select a specific goal.

For example, you might be specific about the industry you want to move to. You might say I want to move from banking to healthcare. 

Or you might be specific about your work-life balance. You have a specific goal of changing to a position where you can be office-based three days a week. 

You are the only person who has a full picture of your situation. The answers to these questions will be unique to you.

If you’re struggling to  identify what’s next in your career,  try describing what you want in more detail. 

Use the prompts below as a starting point. 

• What I would like to be different in my work-life is …
• What I want less of is ….
• What I want more of is …..

Responding to these questions might not yet provide you with specific goals. But clarifying what is most important to you which help you to make some of the challenging choices that are often part of work-life transitions.   

Whether or not having specific goals will help you depends on your situation. But it’s also important to consider if specific career goals might slow your progress. We will finish this piece with that question. 

When Being Specific Might Hinder your Career Transition Progress 

In a rapidly changing area such as the world of work, ideas and customary practice may not keep up. Setting a specific goal won’t be effective without an up-to-date understanding of the labor market, current recruitment practice, and what employers are seeking. 

Friends or family, seeing you stressed, may want to help. But what worked for them may not work for you. If you’re a recent graduate, focusing too tightly on job titles or specific industries may be counterproductive. It’s important that your goals are based on up-to-date information.

Summary

If you’re struggling with setting goals for the career and work-life changes you want to make, it doesn’t mean that you’re not on the right track. There may be good reasons not to be too specific at this time.

Take some time to ask some new questions. Explore the benefit you are hoping for, what you can be specific about, and when specific goals may hinder your work-life transition progress.

In future weeks we will look at other aspects of goal setting for your career and work-life transition.  

Jennifer Bradley

Jennifer Bradley helps professionals get unstuck and move forward in their career and work life. She offers individual coaching and consulting, leads workshops, and writes about personal and professional transitions.

positivetransition.com

The post 3 Questions to Ask When You’re Struggling to Be Specific About your Career Change Goals appeared first on Positive Transition.

Look for Small Changes That Develop your Resilience During Career Change and Work-Life Transition.

1500 miles.  In good weather, this is the distance that migrating Canada geese can fly in a single day. A simple adaptation makes a big difference. The change? By flying in a V formation and switching lead positions, individual birds conserve energy. The whole flock can fly further. 

Do you know what small changes would support you to progress more easily on your career change journey? It’s sometimes easier to identify what’s unhelpful than what your need most.

Gain clarity about what types of support will be most helpful to you by using  the framework below. The four types of support identified are:

• emotional
• instrumental
• informational
• appraisal. 

These four categories are derived from research on effective social support. 

Which types of support are most relevant to you?

1. Emotional Support to Ride the Work-Life Transition Rollercoaster 

Important changes in work and life can be an emotional rollercoaster. So how do you navigate the ups and downs without ending up feeling exhausted? 

The first step is to recognize the importance of emotional support. Access to a network of people who can validate your experiences and provide encouragement makes a big difference. 

Changes at work often coincide with the loss of important social and professional relationships. This may mean that you reduced access to support at times when it would be most helpful. 

If this is true for you, don’t wait. Be proactive. Check out what is available in your area, through your professional association, or online. Building new connections is also a good way to learn about opportunities that otherwise you might not have access to.  

The most important thing is to recognize that even changes that you choose can be emotionally demanding. Access to the emotional support that you need is not a luxury. It’s a crucial element of your successful work-life transition. 

2. Getting Instrumental and Practical Support for Successful Work-Life Change 

In this framework, the second type of support is instrumental. This is practical help that helps you get things done to move forward with your career change. This might be direct help, such a professional that you hired to write your resume or CV or to teach you how to research companies. 

Or it might be indirect support. A friend might do grocery shopping for you or care for your children so that you have uninterrupted time to prepare your career communication documents.  

What’s most helpful for you will depend on your situation and the phase of your work-life transition. 

3. Informational Support that Saves Time and Reduces Confusion 

The third type of support in this framework is informational. In particular, the right information at the right time.  

At certain points in your career change and search for new opportunities, getting reliable information that fits what you need will be a priority. The internet makes it much easier to find relevant information. But information overload is a big challenge. Finding informational support often requires you to consider what will be most helpful. 

Say, for example, you want to evaluate the feasibility of changing industries. Through online research, you can access a great deal of information. But is it the right information? What is more likely to be useful at this point is the ability to have two-way conversations that allow you to ask specific questions.  

4. Appraisal Support to Accelerate your Career Change Preparation 

The fourth type of support in this framework is appraisal support, or evaluation and feedback. Getting honest and informed feedback are particularly important at various times in your career change. 

Appraisal support is not always problem-focused. For example, professionals commonly struggle with identifying and articulating their strengths in ways that speak to potential employers. Sometimes an outsider, such as a trusted colleague, mentor, or coach can help you see connections that up to then were invisible to you. 

When you are changing direction, the ability to “speak the language” of a new field will be a key factor for your credibility. Evaluation support can help you become more aware of ways to adapt so that you can make your transition more quickly. 

Make your Work-Life Transition Easier with this Framework: How to Find the Right Help at the Right Time 

Making big career and work-life transitions can feel like a confusing and lonely journey. But it doesn’t have to be. More often than not, friends, family, and colleagues want to help. But they may not know how. My hope is that this framework will help you to help them by increasing clarity about what you need most at different phases of your career change. 

Finding the right help at the right time will make your transition easier. Getting better at giving and receiving support, will not only develop your future resilience, but also strengthen the relationships that are so important for health and happiness in work and in life. 

Jennifer Bradley

Jennifer Bradley helps professionals get unstuck and move forward in their career and work life. She offers individual coaching and consulting, leads workshops, and writes about personal and professional transitions.

positivetransition.com

The post How to Find the Right Help at the Right Time for a Faster and Easier Career or Work-Life Transition appeared first on Positive Transition.