Put a New Year’s Career Game Plan into Action

A new year is a good time to make dreams and wishes turn into reality.  For those who want to change something about their career, here are a few things to keep in mind:

If you don’t have a job

The job marketing is improving, but far from great.  You will need to work hard and be patient.  That said, several of my clients found new jobs in December, which is normally a slow month for hiring.  Keep the faith, and keep looking.

My number one recommendation for anyone currently looking for work would be to review all of the tools you are using.  Start with networking.  Is there anyone you haven’t contacted or anyone you need to follow up with?  Next, give your resume and cover letter a second look.  Are both documents selling the points that employers want to see?  Finally, be ready when the phone rings.  Practice your interviewing skills

If you have a job

Be ready for change.  Companies will continue to lay off employees, often without warning.  That’s the bad news.  What’s good?  Some companies are hiring, and a few are even paying higher wages.  The trend for the past five years has been small raises or no raise at all.  The only way for most people to get a decent increase in pay is to find a new job.  Be ready if someone comes to you with an opportunity.  Better still, make your own opportunity through networking and applying for new positions.

If you are a student

While the news is also slightly better for college students (more jobs, slightly higher wages), it’s still not good.  How can you stand out in a competitive market?  Be aware of the professional skills that you are developing in classes, projects, and internships.  When you look for a job, present those skills in your resume and during interviews as something an employer should value.

Whatever your career status, take some time over the next week or two to prepare for whatever 2013 will bring – good or bad.  The more you prepare now, the more likely you will be happy about your career on January 1, 2014.  Happy New Year.

Be Realistic about Changing Careers

“Every noble work is bound to face problems and obstacles. . . . Once a positive goal is chosen, you should decide to pursue it all the way to the end.  Even if it is not realized, at least there will be no regret. “

                                                Dalai Lama

As the new year approaches, many people think about changing jobs or careers.  The thought of another years of doing the same thing motivates them to think about change.  Sadly, too few act to make changes in their life.  They know that there will be “problems and obstacles,” so they bow their heads and sink back into misery.

What’s the alternative?  Focus on where you are and where you want to be.  Make a plan, but keep it flexible enough so you can adapt to new realities.  The most important thing to think about is your happiness.  If your current job or career is not satisfying, what do you have to lose in making a change? 

A realistic approach to career change will make you more likely to achieve your goal.  The path will not be straight or easy, but with the right attitude and effort you can get to where you want to be as a professional.  As the Dalai Lama says, to stay where you are not happy will not just bring you misery, it will add to it “regret.”  Don’t cheat yourself.  Make 2012 the year when you pursue the life you want to live.

Sabbath, January 2, 2011

[“Sabbath” is Career Calling’s Sunday feature on life and work beyond the office.]

Getting It Done

Long ago, I resolved to make no more New Year’s resolutions.  Like most people, I would make promises to myself that were forgotten or abandoned sometime before January 7.  A new year motivates us to change.  More importantly, it makes us think about what we want to be different in our lives.

So why don’t we keep our resolutions?  Change is hard, and it is frightening.  The novelist Steven Pressfield has defined this problem as the “resistance,” an ever-changing force that keeps us from doing “our work.”  Those two words say it all: “our work.”  For some people (like Pressfield), the work is art, writing a novel, creating a painting.  For others, it could be starting a business or getting a new job.  The classic “work” of the New Year is losing weight.  Whatever your work, what’s stopping you?  You are.

O.K., it’s not that simple.  In his book The War of Art, Pressfield outlines over 20 ways that resistance pushes us away from our goals and our real work.  He writes, “Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet.  It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to resistance deforms our spirit.  It stunts us and makes us less than we were born to be.”  Even successful people fight this force.  Pressfield cites the actor Henry Fonda whose self-doubt was so strong that he would often be sick before going on a movie set.  What made Fonda great was his ability to face this fear even if he could never conquer it.

Our personal lives and careers intersect, and the resistance impacts both parts of our life.  Many unemployed Americans are facing foreclosure, divorce, and so many other severe challenges.  They are also being held back by a form of resistance that infiltrates too much of our life: statistics.  Some experts tell us that unemployment will be a problem for 2-5 years.  Others claim it will be 5-15 years.  I’m taking these numbers form “The Waiting Game,” an article in today’s Sun-Times by Francine Knowles, who has written many outstanding columns about the job market and challenges facing working people.  This column, however, bothers me because it focuses too much on experts and their predictions. 

Go back and look at any type of prediction, including the weather.  How often is the forecast wrong?  What team was projected to win the Super Bowl or World Series?  How often did they win?  There is no way a junior Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama can beat Hillary Clinton.  We all heard that.  Just as twenty years earlier experts told us there was no way an actor Governor from California could be elected President.  Wasn’t he in a movie with a chimp called Bedtime for Bonzo?  The experts scoffed – and they were wrong.  I’ll write more on this issue in the coming weeks, but let’s get back to the challenge of change and our “work.”

When was it ever easy to find a new job?  When is any kind of change easy?  This period is very difficult, especially for middle-aged and older workers who commanded higher salaries.  People are still finding jobs if they are persistent and able to adapt. It is no different for people who want to quit smoking or lose weight.  Most will not reach their goal because of some resistance.  However, some succeed.  We all know people who set goals and achieved them.  They knew their “work” and they did it.  There’s no easy formula for success.  One thing I know for certain:  playing the “waiting game” gets you nowhere.  Moving forward in the face of fear and rejection is difficult, falling and getting up is hard, but it’s the only way to reach our goals. 

Don’t let the resistance win.  Don’t wait. Get start and keeping going until you’ve reached the finished line.  You manage your life and happiness.  Leave the statistics to the experts, and remember that their predictions are usually wrong.