What Would You Do If You Lost Your Job Tomorrow?
What if you couldn’t go to work tomorrow? If you stopped being a leader, a manager, a principal, an individual contributor, what would you do?
Keep on Going?
Would you keep doing what you’ve always done, and look for another position that leverages your skills? Would you brush up your resume, rewrite your LinkedIn profile, point out your wins, and play down your age and experience to compete?
Retreat to Your Cave?
Or would you take a deserved rest, insulated from the fast-paced, rapid-growth, corporate life you led? Would you hit pause on things you had been “doing” and become a human “being” again?
Going into the unknown with no job, no paycheck, no boss telling you what to do, no lovely and annoying colleagues to bother you is scary.
Having no need to wear business clothes or put on the trappings of work attire is a huge change that feels incredibly rocky at first, as many of us discovered when Covid-19 forced us to work from home.
If you had complete control over your calendar, but no clear reason to fill it up, who would you “be” then?
Change Brings Feelings of Vulnerability
When your routine is impacted, you’re left feeling vulnerable. It leaves you open to making decisions you wouldn’t have considered when you had a busy job. The recruiters on LinkedIn you ignored when you were employed now get your attention, and you feel flattered and filled with hope when you see them calling.
You now consider positions you wouldn’t have entertained before. Didn’t Anthony Bourdain recommend Singapore as a great place to live?
Only Time Will Tell
The longer you go without a regular paycheck, any familiar job title seems doable, even when you know it’s not a good fit. You tell yourself to suck it up. Of course, you can muscle through it.
The truth is you can’t be a huge success at the next job until you’ve processed the baggage you picked up from the last gig, or the one before that!
There is a rite of passage that needs to occur before you can start anew and thrive. If you want to merely “survive” at the new gig, go ahead sign on the dotted line. But if you want to “thrive” in the new gig, you have to acknowledge what happened before and release yourself from its negative clutches.
For example, if you bring your anxiety about conflict in the workplace to your new role, guess what, those exact fears will rear their head in the new gig. Only this time it could be much worse. It isn’t until you’re willing to look at the issues surrounding your fears and see the wisdom and damage your beliefs are having that you will see another way of operating and step back into the flow again.
How Long Will a Career Transformation Take?
Being unwilling to stop and change your beliefs around what isn’t working will, over time, lead to career stagnation. But, having a coach listen and ask questions lets you break free and loosen the grip your fears hold over you.
Your work is important to you, so you’re willing to challenge yourself to raise your own bar and standards, so you can naturally step into greatness. If you’re inspired by the possibilities of knowing the future you want to create is, in fact, possible, DM me and we’ll set up a call to see if coaching is a fit.
