When starting a new career, you are in the exploratory phase, trying to understand if your chosen path is the right one. The next stage in your career is the establishment stage where you are learning through training and experience, establishing yourself as a resource. At this stage you are immersed in your career and if you are engaged, you start to think about ways you can expand in your role and position yourself for a promotion.
At the maintenance stage of your career, you continue to gain breadth and depth of knowledge. At this stage, you may have received promotions or you may be in the same role for an extended period of time.
The final stage in your career is disengagement. Here are a few reasons why disengagement can occur:
· You are experiencing difficulties with your colleagues or manager.
· You are not interested in the position you occupy because you mastered role and you are no longer challenged.
· You goals and interests have changed.
· You have changing family circumstances.
· You are not performing satisfactorily.
Whatever the reason, disengagement can be a difficult stage because you know it is time to leave but you may not be clear about what to do next or when to make a move.
There is no fixed timeline for moving through the four career stages. For instance, some persons may accept a job and move immediately from exploration to disengagement because the work environment is not a good fit. In cases like these, employees have an opportunity to learn valuable lessons about their strengths and weaknesses. Alternatively, a person can take decades to move through the career stages gaining breadth and depth of experience before they disengage. Whatever your reason for disengagement, it is important not to become stuck.
When you feel stuck, you can experience stressful emotions like anger and frustration that can lead to agitated outbursts or even apathy. A sustained negative emotional state can be harmful to your productivity, your health, and your ability to relate effectively with your colleagues. Stressful emotions can also affect your ability to focus on your career, derailing your attempts to work on a career plan. The good news is that regardless your circumstances, reinvention is possible.
Steps to Career Reinvention
Reinvention not only takes vision, it takes planning and discipline. Here are eight tips you can use to reinvent your career and sustain the changes.
1. Connect with your purpose. If you don’t already know your purpose, start from a place of knowing your strengths and preferences. There are various ways you can do this. One way is to hire a career coach. Another way is to complete a self assessment. For an abridged, free assessment you can visit www.assessment.com. If you choose, you can opt to pay for the full version of the inventory.
2. Identify your values. Once you identify the career you prefer, identify and understand your primary values so you can structure your career in a way that meets your personal and professional values.
3. Identify your ideal work environment. You may be purpose driven but you accepted a role in an environment where you cannot thrive. For instance, you know you love a career in accounting but you are not the type of person who can thrive in a competitive environment. So you enjoy your work, but you have great difficulty with the culture and this can lead to the development of a love-hate relationship with your work.
4. Write a career development plan. It is important to identify your skill gaps, your desired career path and then create your career development plan. Waiting for your employer to train you may not be an ideal decision because training is contingent on budgets coupled with your employer’s commitment to developing employees.
5. Create a Career Action Plan: Once you create your development plan you can create another action plan designed to move you along a defined path to your goals. It is important to build timelines into this plan so you are clear on how long you want to remain in a particular role. This plan can also focus on building your network, updating your résumé or starting a business.
6. Network, network, network. Networking is important whether you are changing careers or seeking a promotion. When changing careers, you can tap into your network to access industry intelligence which can help you to identify an ideal role or work environment. It can also provide you with information about existing or upcoming vacancies. If you want to prepare for a promotion, a network can provide you with a mentor or it can serve as a resource you can tap into when you need to make things happen.
7. Create a system of accountability. Despite your best intentions, your reality of busyness can derail your career change plans. To remain focused on your goals, it would behoove you to find a way to remain accountable to your goals. Some people form mastermind groups which are groups of like-minded people who come together to support each other with attaining their goals. Others join networks or clubs and some decide to keep their plans to themselves. If you choose not to share your plans, it is important to create a system of personal accountability you can use to remain on a path of change.
8. Build balance into your career plan. There may be times in your career when you decide to sacrifice balance to achieve your goals. While sacrifice is sometimes perceived as necessary, you can remain stuck in the mode of sacrifice, neglecting to reinstate balance in your life.
In closing, it is important for you to realize you should be the primary author of your career plan. As previously stated, this means you should create a realistic vision for your career and life so you can decide how long you will await a promotion or other types of developmental opportunities. You also need to determine how much you will invest in your own development so you are not at the mercy of a fluctuating training budget.
Yvette Bethel is CEO of Organizational Soul, an HR Consulting and Leadership Development company. If you are interested in creating and executing a personal career plan, you can connect with her on the contact page at www.orgsoul.com. Career Coaching Sessions begin in January 2011.