Career Reinvention
Q: A 50-something business professional wants to know: “I’ve come to hate my job. How can I reinvent my professional self?”
A: There’s a lot out there on the topic of career reinvention. You can work with a coach, see a therapist, or read self-help books to find your answers. All of these are viable strategies. But if you’re someone who doesn’t have a lot of money to spend or time to waste figuring out the answer to this question, you’ve just come to the right place.
As human beings, our professional priorities evolve over time. After years as drones in the rat race, we may come to a point where we are no longer willing to trade our freedom, happiness, and peace of mind for money. We wake up one day and say out loud to ourselves, “I hate my job,” or, “I just don’t want to do this anymore.”
And, if we’re not quite ready to step away from our professional life, the problem then becomes determining exactly what it is that we can and should be doing before we retire.
To find your answers, it’s time to have a meeting with yourself during which you ponder two key questions:
1. What do I like to do?
2. What am I good at doing?
Make a list and write down the top five things that come to your mind for question 1. Next, do the same thing for question 2.
Example:
1. What do I like to do?
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Reading
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Learning new things
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Teaching
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Writing
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Giving advice
2. What am I good at doing?
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Reading
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Learning new things
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Teaching
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Writing
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Giving advice
Important: In order to figure out your career reinvention solution, your lists need to match. Here’s why: you may like doing something but if you’re not very good at it, chances are that a job in that area won’t pan out. I may enjoy riding horses, but I am not very good at riding horses. That means I would not last too long in a job that involves riding horses.
Now, think of jobs you can or want to do that require the skills on your lists:
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College Instructor
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Marketing Consultant
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Columnist
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Author
Your career reinvention begins when you complete this thinking exercise. If you are able to specifically articulate what you like to do and what you are good at doing to yourself and then, to others, you will be surprised at the new job possibilities that will come into your mind.
Lynn Hoban works with mid-size companies to scale business operations and ignite marketing programs for growth. Lynn has a proven track record in consumer marketing. Her programs are effective because they are built on a depth of experience in human being management as well as in operations, R&D, staffing, training, and procurement. Lynn is known for her direct leadership style, which cuts through chaos and gets results. To ask a question or to find out more, visit www.LynnHobanMarketing.com.