LH AGENDA > career change

career change

Have you ever considered a career in writing? You may or may not have formal training and wonder if you have what it takes to make a full-time career from something that you love. Whether it is through monetizing a personal blog or landing a job with a magazine, if the idea of writing excites you, you will love this interview with Rachel Werner.

Rachel is the digital editor of Brava Magazine a Wisconsin-based publication and a freelance writer, and the social media manager of “The Celebration Society, another subsidiary of Nei Turner Media Group. Not only that’s she’s also a fitness instructor, health coach and a 2016-17 national WomenRide4Change Ambassador! Her passionate commitment to holistic wellness and sustainable agriculture keeps her a Midwestern girl at heart.

In this interview, she shares how she went from blogging to becoming a published writer in both regional and national publications. As she mentions in this interview, it is “okay to struggle” while pursuing your craft, but it is possible to follow your dream of becoming a writer.

Hi Rachel! Would you tell our readers a little about you and your role with BRAVA Magazine?

I am currently the digital editor of BRAVA, a Wisconsin-based magazine created by women for women and subsidiary of Nei-Turner Media Group. I’m also the social media manager of another Nei-Turner publication and brand, The Celebration Society, for which I curate trending wedding content and engaging event images aimed at increasing the visibility of The Celebration Society’s brand.

In particular, I enjoy overseeing the culinary, arts, fashion and beauty coverage in my current roles and has previously contributed print, photography and video content for other media outlets around the country such as Madison Magazine, Big Life, Entrepreneurial Chef and Hobby Farms Magazine—all while maintaining side gigs as a fitness pro, a 2016-2017 national cycling WomenRide4Change Ambassador and a 2017 World Food Championships Top Ten Finalist judge.

You have been a freelance writer for several years, can you tell us a little about that?

A precarious mix of passion and life circumstance served as the impetus for the career arc I am currently on. In hindsight, writing seems to have continuously intersected with my academic, professional and/or personal pursuits on some level even when it wasn’t necessarily the primary focus. I also do not have a degree in journalism or English (I common question I am asked).

But seven years ago, I found myself grappling with a significant number of life shifts: a divorce, single parenting, transitioning from a social work position at a nonprofit into the fitness industry. As a coping mechanism, I began to daily transfer my concerns, emotions and observations “onto the page” as a way of processing life. What began as mere journaling evolved into blogging, which then sparked a curiosity to see if I could further hone my writing skills and perhaps supplement my income via this blossoming delight.

I decided to take a writing working through University of Wisconsin-Madison’s continuing education studies department. I did not know it at the time, but that one decision would serve as the biggest catalyst for launching my freelance career. People often ask how I “did it.” And the honest truth is I literally followed almost verbatim the tips and seasoned advice the instructor shared on how to determine a writing niche, pitch articles and connect with editors. And it worked! Within three years, I went from being virtually unknown as a blogger to becoming a published writer in numerous regional and national publications and the assistant editor at BRAVA.

What is one thing you wish you would have known before pursuing a career in writing?

The one thing that I wish I had known before I started to seriously consider writing as an occupation is that it really is okay to struggle for a stretch in pursuit of your craft. And that writing can have tremendous VALUE on a personal and professional level, filled with objectives for both that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Also, the power of networking. DO NOT EVER underestimate the potential impact of foraging connections within and outside of your current sector or industry and where that could potentially lead.

What tactics do you use when writing? Do you outline or do you simply sit down and start writing?

Probably my most “signature” hallmark as a writer is that I almost always take notes by hand. I also never audio record subjects when I interview them or “google” them before we meet or speak via phone. I prefer my impressions and interactions to be as organic as possible. I think it helps me retain details more clearly once I am ready to compose the piece. I have a myriad of journals I make notations in, which merely serve as a reference point if needed once the actual writing begins. I also rarely delete an email, preferring instead to file most correspondence away in digital folders, rendering it easily accessible if early communications could potentially shed light on an event, person and/or topic down the road.

Do you have tips on how we could become better writers?

If you want to become a better writer, seek out ways to receive regular feedback on your work. Join a writing group or enroll in a workshop or an intensive like The Fifth Semester or Upod Academy. Public libraries, colleges, writer associations and book festivals can also all be useful resources for finding this sort of info. By no means does one need to pursue a MFA degree, but if that resonates with you on some level, GO FOR IT! The most important thing is to connect with others just as invested in this art form—and to carve out time to write on a consistent basis.

How do you stay inspired?

I stay inspired by reading: classics, memoirs, picture books…I love it all! I almost never watch TV unless it’s a sports event or I am at the gym working out so books are my primary way to “disconnect” or wind down at day’s end. Also, a long-term goal of mine is to become a published author. I currently have two first drafts of contemporary fiction that I am plugging along on and three children’s books I am revising and pitching to editors.

What words of encouragement or wisdom would you like to share with a woman just starting off in this industry?

The best advice I have to share is the same wisdom which was imparted to me early on: “Get comfortable with rejection because you’re going to hear a lot of ‘NO’s’. But as long as you keep refining your ideas and pitches, eventually someone IS going to like one of your ideas enough to give you a shot.”

You can follow Rachel’s adventures around the country on Instagram: @therealscript.

You went to university, picked a course, got the degree and now you’ve been working for a while… but for some reason, your job isn’t quite satisfying. You want to do something more, something different, but it all seems so overwhelming.

Or perhaps you’ve taken some time off from work—time for yourself, or time for children. Now you’re ready to return, but it’s nerve-wracking given all the time away. Is that job you used to do still what you want to do? Does it accommodate the changes in your life?

It won’t be easy, and it will require dedication and determination, but you can start working towards the career you want today.

Know what you want

What is it that excites you? Would it make you jump out of bed in the morning? We all have a big list of things we enjoy doing, but not all of those will inspire you enough to keep at them when things get tough.

Whatever it is you choose to you, it must align with your core values, and be something you would still want to do—even if you never had to work another day in your life. If you need some guidance, download our free Passion Discovery printables for exercises to find what gives your life its spark!

Decide what to sacrifice

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Time is limited, and so is your energy. What will you choose to stop doing, so that you have time to start doing whatever it is that will get you to the career you want?

This could be anything from cutting down on weekly breakfast out with friends, foregoing movie night, taking one less fitness class a week, or even pushing dinner duties to your significant other. The important thing is that you set aside time to work on creating your future.

Skill up

It seems obvious, and there’s no getting around it—you’ll need to gain or develop the skills you need to pursue your passion. Not only do you need the technical skills in the field, as well as leadership skills, but if you’re planning on running your own side-hustle, you also need the business skills.

Thankfully, in this day and age, there are lots of options available. For example, Southern Cross University offers many 100% online courses, which enable you to study at your own time and pace, even while you continue to work. They also provide a dedicated Student Success Advisor, who is there to support you from start to finish.

An MBA online course is perfect for those looking to grow as leaders and managers, and understand business fundamentals. It’s one of the most affordable MBAs in Australia and has flexible entry and exit options. This means you can stop your studies at certain points throughout the degree, yet still earn a postgraduate certificate or diploma.

Network even before you begin

Don’t wait until you’ve started to network. Go to relevant industry events while you’re still in the planning or dreaming stage, and get chatting! There are people at these events who’ve already walked the path you’re about to embark on, so there are opportunities to glean some great advice. If you’re truly passionate about what you want to do, these people will be able to see that–and respond.

You might also come across others in the same place as you, who are starting out and are as new and unsure as you. Don’t dismiss them, because it’s invaluable to have others to share the journey with. They’re amazing support; they’ll be going through similar highs and lows, and will be as hungry as you to make it.

Stay determined

No one ever said it was going to be easy. Changing direction, learning new skills and pushing your mind to work in new and different ways will always be challenging. There’ll be days where you wonder what possessed you to take this journey, and days where you want to give up. But the important thing is to keep pushing. Every time you fail, get up and keep going. That’s how wars are won—and there’s no more important war than the one for your future!

This article was created in partnership with Southern Cross University.

So, you want to lead your world. You’re ambitious. You’re passionate. But there’s one hitch. One question that nags at you. WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE and where do I direct all this ambition and passion?

I know you. You’re hungry for impact and influence but you also crave meaning and purpose. You want to know with that quiet certainty, “This is what I’m called to do.”

You want success to mean you’ve found your ‘wow’ and you are living it. Making an income from it. Influencing.

But how do you know with certainty what your calling is?

I’m so like you. On the outside I had the big corporate, successful life and career. A long degree in Architecture meant I was already a professional at the outpost, but was this what I really wanted? 25 years later I’ve had an eclectic career in creative and business fields, in both Australia and Europe. I’ve had the fancy titles – Strategic Director, Brand Architect, International Training & Development Manager, Change Leader. I even worked remotely for 6 years for a European brand whilst I was based in Sydney – now that’s an effective long distance relationship! I also pioneered a hugely successful leadership development college in the heart of London.

But I was always asking, ‘What shall I do when I grow up?’ Even after I turned 40!

Now I know.

Now I know with full certainty.

And it was easier, way easier than I thought.

Why hadn’t someone told me this before?

Well, I never had that mentor to help me, but I know that pain well. So, here’s 7 secrets that I wished someone had told me years ago.

1. It’s not necessarily about finding your passion

I get this advice. It’s well meaning. But not every personality feels intense passion. Some personalities have multiple passions, others don’t feel they are passionate about much at all (so, is there something wrong with me, becomes the next question).

Firstly, to the second group of people, there is nothing wrong with you. Drop the need to find your missing passion and instead, find what brings you the most peace. It’s a more helpful emotional guide for your personality type. Not everyone feels deep ‘passion’.

2. I have too many passions – what do I do?

So, to the ones who have multiple passions, many ideas, many options… I know that feeling well. You find it hard to choose and focus. I get it. Well, firstly, being ‘jack of all trades’ is not the enemy it used to be 20 years ago. Well-meaning advice to niche down isn’t necessarily correct anymore – it’s helpful in targeting customers, but not good life advice.

You can do multiple things, but you only have NOW to do it, so you must decide what you will do first. The best trick for doing this is to write each idea down on separate pieces of paper, toss them in a hat (a bowl or empty coffee mug will also do) and then draw one out. If your heart feels energised, then that’s the one thing to focus on next. If your heart energy drops a little, then draw another idea out of the hat until you feel that little ‘yes’ inside you. Then devote the next 3 months to making that idea happen. And park the other ideas – they are all part of your vision, just not your ‘next thing’.

3. It’s a blend of WHO you are and WHAT lights you up

Personality tests, SWOT analyses, updating your CV – all these things are great. But they only scratch the surface. They tell you who you are and what you’ve done, but unless you marry it with what lights you up you are left still asking the question, “What’s my calling?”

And if you are a doer, you’ve been good at getting stuff done, but you know your heart isn’t in it anymore. So, get in touch with what lights you up. What brings you joy. What brings you peace and that general good feeling. It doesn’t have to be ‘oh-my-goodness, turn on the spotlight’ passion. Look for that little lift in energy you feel – and that feeling right there can act like powerful breadcrumbs to your calling.

4. It’s not about a job or a new career

Imagine a pyramid sliced into three layers. At the bottom is ‘job’ – the work you do. In the middle is ‘career’ – it’s seen as an evolution from just having a job. ‘I’ve got a career’ feels good to say, but if you are reading this post then I know you no longer really believe that. The top part of the pyramid is your calling. This goes beyond a job or career. It’s not an identity. It’s a lifestyle. So, if you are frustrated right now and looking for a new direction, consider – is it a new job you seek, a new career or is it something bigger?

5. You are already in your calling

This secret is the biggest and yet often the most frustrating. You think, If I’m already in my calling, why do I feel this way? It’s because you are seeing your calling as something you do!

To know what you are called to do is to know who you are called to be! I was looking for decades for the holy grail of a defined calling, as if it would be the perfect career. Then I suddenly saw that my whole life was my calling and I was already living it.

I was called to be inspirational, I was called to be a leader… a teacher, a mother, a partner and, most importantly, I was called to my own wellness. This thinking changed everything. I set a one word intention for each area of my life and I within days I had peace. Finally. My whole life was my calling.

6. It’s not about one big calling but about the next assignment

This point is my favourite, and probably gave me the biggest personal breakthrough of all. It ties together all the other points above. My calling is my whole life and involved who I am plus what lights me up and then it’s about what my next assignment will be! That took a whole lot of pressure off.

All I needed to figure out was what I wanted my next assignment to be. After that I could choose another assignment and so on. Look at your life as a series of assignments. Some are long term (e.g. being a parent is a long term assignment), some are short term (the jobs, or careers, or projects we are involved in). All combine to be our calling.

7. Stop waiting for a voice from ‘out there’.

Finally, stop looking or waiting for someone or something out there to give you clarity over your life. It can only come from within you. If you dig deep in your heart you might find that you’ve been waiting for permission from someone else to tell you to ‘go for it’. Or you’ve been trying to please your partner, or your parents (yes, we still do this long after we’ve left home) or someone else that has influence in your life. Only you can find and confirm your calling.

Your calling is whatever you want it to be!

Merilyn is an inspirational leadership & life-direction mentor who has worked internationally for over 25 years helping businesses and their owners grow. Now she’s helping women find their ‘wow’ and lead their own worlds – using her decades of professional experience in branding, strategic direction and leadership development flavoured by her down-to-earth and creative personality. You can find her at www.merilynberetta.com and take her wow-archetype quiz to discover more about what you are called to be.

Very recently, a good friend and colleague called to me to say that she “must quit my job… they’re killing my soul”. Dramatic words, but ones that I’m sure most of us can relate to.

Katherine* took me through the many ways of quitting that she was fantasizing about – and we’ve all wanted to do it at least once – storm into the boss’ office and tell them exactly what we think of them. Katherine had settled on entering her boss’ office and telling her that “it’s not me, it IS you. And will always be YOU”. Thankfully though, she sought my advice before embarking on her career-changing tirade.

We’ve all heard tales about the souls who have let loose on their workplace superior before leaving the building – in fact YouTube is home to a number of video reminders of such exits that while amusing should never be considered a ‘how to’ – really, if you’ve got a few minutes spare just type “I quit my job” and see what comes up… maybe don’t do it work though!

Many years ago I was privy to watching a colleague be escorted from the building following her quitting performance, and the rumours started immediately. Whilst the most plausible explanation is that given her high level access to client and finance databases she was likely considered a commercial security risk upon quitting, the rumour-mill posited that she threatened the boss with blackmail, or worse, with actual violence. Though given she has been stably employed by another organisation since that date though, it’s safe to say it was probably just a commercial security thing!

So what do you do when you’ve reached your limit in your current job, and how do you effectively ‘break up’ with your boss without ruining your reputation or sabotaging future prospects?

PLEASE – don’t be tempted to be the next YouTube ‘epic quit’ video!

Keep it clean

…and I’m not just talking about your language. As tempting as it may be to let the boss know what you think of their manner, smell, appearance, sense of humour, taste in lunch foods or music – or pretty much anything outside the boundaries of their work capacity is not cool. It’s never cool. And if you let loose with ‘dirty feedback’ you’ll only be hurting yourself. Now, I’m not saying don’t give warranted feedback about factors that influenced your decision to leave the job – but I AM suggesting you keep it professional and related to the job. The ‘keep it clean’ rule also extends to discussions with HR or exit interviews, goodbye emails to colleagues and customers, and general goodbyes around the office. And PLEASE – don’t be tempted to be the next YouTube ‘epic quit’ video!

It’s not you, it’s me

Well, sort of. What I’m suggesting here is to actually review the reasons why YOU need to move on. Is it that you are ready for a challenge? Is it that you are looking for a different environment? What have you learned from this job and boss? Taking ownership of all life decisions is important for personal growth and development, and in-keeping with the ‘keep it clean’ rule, a resignation is a good opportunity to have an open discussion about these factors. It’s also a good opportunity for you to really consider what you need from your next career move – to make sure that you’re not just jumping ship for the sake of it.

Integrity. Integrity. Integrity.

I cannot stress this one enough. Ever heard the saying “success without integrity is failure”? Well, I’m not sure who said it but they were sure on to something. Integrity is the art of maintaining ethical and honest actions.

Sure-fire ways of demonstrating a lack of integrity when changing jobs? Bad-mouthing your previous employer or colleagues (again – keep it clean!), scouting clients from your previous employer, illegally or unethically using intellectual property associated with your previous employer, or undermining the public’s confidence in your previous employer. Using any of these tactics, while it may be tempting, will be simply demonstrating poor integrity on your behalf, which will no doubt be remembered long into the future.

But what if you’ve already quit in spectacular fashion? While you may not be able to mend the relationship, a simple apology can go a long way to building a bridge and demonstrating integrity. For better or worse, most experienced bosses have seen it all before – some of them will even recognise their younger selves in your ill-conceived quitting performance. But I’m afraid, the only way through this is to suck it up, and eat some humble pie. And learn!

*Not quite her real name

Lauren Maxwell

Lauren is the founder of Headstrong Women, a specialist career development service in Newcastle and Sydney. She is passionate about empowering women just like you to get the most of out of their career, build confidence and maintain their mojo.

Rebecca_Wilson_portrait From a background in marketing consulting, Rebecca Wilson applies her entrepreneurial passion and love for community through Starts at 60. Rebecca founded Starts at 60 in 2012 to offer the information, insights and ideas those in the over-60 age group are looking for. Starts at 60 is a news, blog and information website, and online community for over-60s in Australia and New Zealand.

Rebecca gives us an overview of how she has grown throughout her career, and the transition from consultant to tier one firms to successful entrepreneur.

Can you tell us about the Rebecca Wilson story?

My story starts back at university. I studied nothing in particular in a really entertaining way but I got involved in university clubs and innovation groups and got sucked down this addictive hole of entrepreneurship. I can put that as a really exciting thing to have done outside the framework of university that started my hunger.

After university I did the classic ‘get a good job, in an industry that looked good to your family and your friends’ to tick that box. Everybody gets one of those. I was a trainee stockbroker in an era where the Internet didn’t exist and that made my dad smile. My school education was validated and everyone thought, She is going to be safely employed for the rest of her life. Ten months in I moved to London, fell in love and away we went.

I think we left with only six weeks worth of money, not knowing we would arrive in London with six weeks worth of money because the dollar was so weak. We got to week five, we had no jobs and we were looking at that money going ‘we don’t want to ring home and ask for money.’

Week five on the Friday, I got a job at Morgan Stanley and that was a magnificent experience. I worked 60 hours a week for two years in the investment banking industry to fund my ‘backpacking thirty-three countries around the world in two years moments.’ Then I transitioned to the next step, which was coming back from London.

I landed in a friends business who was a 21 year old entrepreneur. I took as much risk as I could in the .com boom- travelled the world, raised capital, did some really cool things that I possibly didn’t realise that I was ever going to do again for fifteen years. Then I went into corporate. The world of .com fell apart and my safety sense was to use all the skills I’d learnt in entrepreneurship but go into that corporate environment and build a career.

I ended up in consulting in tier one and two consulting firms. Learning my way through the engineering industry, basically plodding along what is a very nice, safe career path. I left to have kids at the age of 27 and the management team of the business I worked for said I could come back minimum four days per week or as an administrator, if I wanted a job. At that point I politely said no.

I started then working as a consultant and it was the first taste I had working as a consultant. I worked for $20 an hour in marketing consulting providing advice to people on how to grow their business. My business, Stretch Marketing, started to turnover a decent amount of work and I worked my way to tier one firms in the CBD and very good hourly consulting rates. I did consulting for ten years and stopped taking consulting work in January 2015.

Stretch Marketing started in 2009. I wanted the marketing I did to be a demonstration of how well I would market my clients. From that point I committed to writing blogs, learning more about marketing and found leaders all over the world I wanted to learn from. Since 2009, I’ve been committed to staying on the front of that wave of knowing everything in marketing that I need to know.

That process of hitting the end of Stretch Marketing was really scary as I had just founded Starts at 60. I ended Stretch Marketing because I had effectively ended up back in the corporate world, managing more corporate teams than I was people in my own business.

What inspired you to start Starts at 60?

The over 60s are my parents, they’re cool, they’re awesome. We can all look at our parents who are 50, 60 or 70 and know that they are in a phase of their life that we haven’t seen yet. The generation has never been seen this proactively before. People haven’t been this healthy, worked this long and they haven’t had as much affluence.

I could see this in the corporates I was working for with opportunities for them to work with baby boomers as a great emerging market and I would sit there and rattle their cans going ‘please take notice, these people need you to notice them.’ In the end I sat back and thought, ‘am I taking my own advice? In two years time would I still like to be consulting or could I be doing something more meaningful?’

I’ve got a big social development background which started when I built a website [Flood Discounts] during the 2011 [Brisbane] floods. I built the site with my now business partner overnight when the floods hit to build a community of discounts available for people. We built a website where companies could lodge their discounts and we had 9,000 discounts lodged in the website within 2 weeks. It was a voluntary project and there was no profit because this was my community in Brisbane. The learning of it was how awesome community is. It’s so awesome to do something to change the world a little bit. That’s why I started Starts at 60.

How did you navigate you transition from the corporate consulting world to being an entrepreneur again?

Not very elegantly! I kept trying to wait for the perfect moment to tell my clients that I changed paths but sometimes you don’t want to give up what’s working really well until your new wheel is built and I didn’t know if this new wheel was going to work.

A lot of my beautiful clients are very close friends so they knew I was evolving into something different. They knew I wasn’t going away but they also knew I wasn’t going to be there to provide their ongoing consulting support. I certainly one day didn’t go and announce that I was shutting Stretch Marketing.

I probably could have done it better but you rarely get perfect timing in entrepreneurship. Other than the window we got two weeks ago when we secured a tier one investor and we went, ‘the door now shuts on every earlier project and we are focusing on the things we should do not the things we could do.’

How did you face the challenges when moving from the corporate world to Starts at 60?

We had 3 people a year ago and now we’re up to 18. The first challenges were confidence based. They were around when to hire and what to hire into our team and how to grow and mentor. As a consultant I had never learned how to be a mentor. I had been a really good external mentor but I had never been accountable for somebody’s day-to-day behaviours. Learning how to be a very good manager of people became my next big skill set to work on and I’m still working on it everyday of the week.

When did you introduce a board to Starts at 60?

In January 2015. I had a group of three wonderful people around me as mentors who came around to get me really focused. I had ten things I wanted to do back then but I also wanted to close my investment round. I knew focus was an important part of that. I brought my ten things to the table and my mentors said ‘wow, you could change the world but you can’t do it with all those focuses.’

They told me to knuckle down on a number one focus, run a great business and then the other focuses, which is what we have done. A year later I am so proud of taking their advice because they were right on. We are only at the beginning and they were right to focus me. That’s what a board has been fantastic for.

How will the investment from Seven West Media help Starts at 60 continue to grow?

It doesn’t change who are today. We have built here in this office a very successful business. The people in it are so passionate about what they do; it’s exciting to come in everyday. We wanted to be at the very frontline of media technology as it evolves [and] it takes a fair bit of investment in analysts and data because that is where media is moving. The last thing you want to do is get caught running a publisher with an old-school business model in an evolving media industry.

You want to be running a fully integrated media business that has a great way of understanding how to evolve as the media market evolves. There are lots of reasons for working with [Seven West Media], number one is technology for us and number two is they have enormous reach into the baby boomer [audience]. They really love what we’re doing, we’re an innovation investment and it brings to them an asset they don’t have in digital to do some of that innovation.

Is there anything you wish you had done differently?

At this point, the biggest lessons are around people. I’m constantly learning about recruitment and staffing which I have never had a background in. There’s nothing I would do differently because everything you do that didn’t work, you learn something from that I will use in the future. Without those learnings I don’t think I’d be where I am right now.

What have been some of your biggest lessons from Starts at 60?

Putting deals together. Putting together the deal with Seven West Media, I feel like I got an MBA in 9 short months and it is a privilege to work with a team like that. They are really smart in different things than I am smart in so the mutual strengths are terrific.

I’ve also learnt about building websites at speed with traffic. The developers go ‘Rebecca, you think that’s going to take this long. Multiply it by four.’ The risk of dropping something that isn’t tested properly into 5 million page views can destroy everything and you can’t afford to take a risk with any of the moving pieces.

I think I also would have brought sales people on earlier to make decision making easier but that’s because you think you can do the job for too long. I’m getting better at learning what job I’m good at and now packaging roles and bringing people into those roles where they are going to provide better value than me doing everything. I’ve done almost every job in the business before somebody else did it. I just keep inching myself towards more leadership oriented roles.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

When you’re sitting in the corner going ‘why am I doing this?’ just keep going.
If you don’t feel a little bit sick in your stomach, you’re not pushing yourself hard enough.
It’s okay for you to want to be challenged and it’s also okay to have phases of life where you don’t.
Be confident to work out who you are. I know we all feel like imposters, it’s normal.

Thanks to Rebecca for sharing her insights with Leaders in Heels!

It’s very tempting, I know, to continually be on the look-out for the “next big thing”. In an age where opportunities are presented to us at every turn, and where the internet screams out to us to explore alternatives on a constant basis, it can be difficult to maintain focus and direction. But what if the grass isn’t always greener? What if instead of growing your ambition and speeding down the path to success you were actually diluting your strength and missing out on true opportunities? Well, ultimately this may the case.

You may actually be disadvantaging yourself.

Here’s why.

Overwhelmed with opportunities

Typically, we humans all have an opportunity-sweet-spot. It’s that spot where we feel comfortable at having enough opportunities so as to not feel trapped or isolated, but not so many options that we feel overwhelmed or unable to commit to any. In the current world, we are spoiled for choice across all aspects of our lives – consumer items, online dating, grocery specials – we are literally bombarded with information and opportunities from all directions. Have you ever noticed how you can feel anxious and overwhelmed, then make snap decisions with regards to the mass of options being presented to you? This is exactly the same reaction that can happen when you continually invite a mass of competing work-opportunities at one time. Rather than feeling motivated and working towards a chosen goal, you can end up feeling panicked and accept offers that were not necessarily the ones you would have picked without so much ‘background noise’.

Rather than feeling motivated and working towards a chosen goal, you can end up feeling panicked and accepting offers that were not necessarily the ones you would have picked

Diluting your power

The aim of you seeking out the best opportunity is to give you a platform with which to show off your skills and qualities, and to develop your career along your desired trajectory, right? That sounds like a sensible plan – but before dividing your energy between a thousand and one competing options, you need to assess where that energy is best spent and how many opportunities you can comfortably divide yourself between. Afterall, by over-committing you run the risk of diluting your strength and in turn becoming less-effective in your search. My advice: assess your goal, and choose between two or three options that are most likely going to set you up for success. You need to be able to put enough effort into each of the opportunities that you go for, so as to be putting your best foot forward in each of them. If you find that you’re not able to do that, it’s time to re-assess.

Committing.…to what?

The ‘c-word’ is a tricky mistress, and one that can elicit feelings of panic in some of us. In an ironic twist, however, your efforts to keep your ‘options open’ and not commit to a specific opportunity, may in fact morph into you inadvertently committing yourself to the process of searching. Looking for the next big thing can be seductive, and it’s important to recognise that you are not merely becoming habituated to the process. Take a step back and ask yourself why you are still looking – if you’re unable to come up with an answer, you may be in dangerous territory.

Looking for the next big thing can be seductive, and it’s important to recognise that you are not merely becoming habituated to the process.

Will I ever be satisfied?

In another case of blatant irony, constantly seeking satisfaction can actually lead to feelings of disengagement and dissatisfaction. Ever noticed how sometimes the allure of seeking more satisfaction sometimes overrides the original achievement of a particular goal? This is a pretty common scenario (and not just career-wise). While I’m not suggesting you revert back to the old “be happy with what you have” mentality, I do recommend that perhaps you consider your own satisfaction scale. Start by reminding yourself what it is that you were actually hoping to get from your career, and asking yourself what it is that you truly need to feel satisfied. What you may find is that some or even many of the opportunities you are blindly applying for do not meet even these needs.

Ever noticed how sometimes the allure of seeking more satisfaction sometimes overrides the original achievement of a particular goal?

So what’s the solution if you are genuinely looking for a new opportunity or to land on your next career launch pad?

While I’m not saying “choose one path and stick with it”, I do advocate that care be taken when selecting opportunities and planning ahead. My general advice:

Take the time to consider what you actually want, and ask yourself what it is that you are seeking from a new opportunity. Once you have clarified this, it will be easier to discern between actual opportunities that you plan to invest yourself in and those which are simply distractors.

Create an action plan for your career – list down your immediate goals, achievements to date, steps involved in getting to where you want to be, and most importantly your long term goal. This will help you to keep on track, and provide a framework for seeking helpful opportunities.

Cull and commit to opportunities that are more likely to benefit you and your long term goals. This will ensure that you are able to adequately invest enough energy to be successful in your application and are not spreading yourself too thin.

Give it a fair go. Once you’ve successfully made a transition and entered a role that you saw benefit in, give it a real shot. This doesn’t mean simply staying in the job for a set period of time, but rather fully immersing yourself in the position to gain the maximum benefit. After all, you are trying to progress your career and break the cycle of ‘looking for something better’.

Relax – just like dating, nobody wants to come across as desperate when they are networking or interviewing for career opportunities. By being more discriminating of the opportunities you seek based on your goals and needs, you will likely find that you are automatically more relaxed and confident in your approach. Remember, it’s about working smarter, not harder.

Featured Photo Credit: Pixabay

Lauren Maxwell is a Rehabilitation Counsellor and Career Development Consultant, with close to 15 years of experience across the two fields. She is the founder of Headstrong Women, a specialist women’s career development service, and thrives on innovation and creativity to empower women to reach their potential.