Stop Dreaming About Making a Career Change

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Dream vs PlanHow many times have you dreamed of doing something different with your career? Your life?

You stare out the window while the computer pings new messages. The office buzzes with sounds while your mind wanders as you think, “What if..?”

If I’ve learned one thing from my life and career so far, it’s that dreams are just that: dreams.

Nothing’s going to happen unless we take the steps to make it happen.

I can hear you now – or maybe it’s the voices in your head – crying some version of, “But how?”

Quite frankly, I don’t know how. That’s because I don’t know exactly what your dreaming about.

What I do know is this: there are endless possibilities out there for all of us, just waiting to happen. Pursuing these possibilities takes a few steps. Specifically, we need a plan to pursue our dreams. Or to see if it’s possible for the dream to become a reality.

Assuming you have a dream you want to pursue, consider the following:

Step 1:  Research your dream

For example, if you want to become a dog walker for a living, research the competition in your area. Visit with them. Determine the pay scale. Is the market saturated with dog walkers? Is the wage realistic for full-time work or is this a part-time gig?

Step 2: Develop a business plan

This includes any funding you might need, creative/marketing plans, legal work, etc.  Include metrics for success and time frames for accomplishing your goals.

Step 3: Share your plan with a TRUSTED partner

Not someone you just met at a bar who claims to know something about business. This person should be someone you know well and trust implicitly. Someone who also knows you very well, what you excel at, and what you don’t.  This person needs to provide constructive criticism and ideas and be strong enough to say, “No, this is not a good idea”.  You need to be strong enough to hear what this person has to say.

Step 4: Gain the support of your spouse/partner

Taking a leap of faith and leaving a salaried position, or taking on a part-time role affects the family. It’s always better if everyone is on board.

Step 5: Have an exit strategy; a Plan B.

What will you do if things don’t work out or you decide the “dream” is not what you expected?

Bottom line: I’m a firm believer in trying something new, especially when it comes to a well-thought-out career move.  So, wake-up, make a plan, and give it your best shot to turn your dream career into a reality.

No regrets, right?

Own Your Strengths

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Woman with Shopping Bags

Hi – my name is Tami, and I’m a…a…retailer. 

Yes, I’ve known this for quite some time.  Why haven’t I told you before?  Oh, I don’t know.  It’s one of those things that sometimes just doesn’t sound as good as I’d like it too.

Being a retailer is not an easy career path, and it’s one that I chose to pursue when I was in graduate school.  Retailing has everything: strategy, products, logistics, finance, communications, marketing and sales.  It’s old fashioned, with brick and mortar stores, yet so twenty-first-century with ecommerce and mobile apps.

My favorite part is that it’s fast-paced and constantly changing.  We had a saying at my first retail job out of school: you’re only as good as yesterday’s sales.  It’s a constant tug between “how did we do” and “what is our next big thing”, always striving to be better.  To be a good retailer, you need to be able to move between creative and analytical in a heartbeat.  It’s stressful even in slow periods.  And holidays – or should I say “what holidays”?  They are super busy when everyone else has time off.

And I love it!

For some reason I understand the business model, I like the frenetic pace, I enjoy mixing creativity, strategy and analytics, and above all, I enjoy seeing the results.

So why am I telling you this? 

After the layoff I was afraid to tell people I was a retailer.  Not because I was ashamed but because I wanted to cast a wide net in the job search and didn’t want to be exclusively defined by this title.  Frankly, I was afraid of being viewed as a “one-trick pony” when I knew I had much more to offer.

So what did I do?  I came up with some snazzy words to convey the type of work I did to avoid pigeon-holing myself into one industry.   I played down my past employment and spoke in general terms about my experience.

The result? In doing so I ignored my biggest strength:  I am a retailer and I thrive in that type of environment.

My advice to anyone looking for work is to be truthful about who you are in the work force and what type of work makes you tick.  Own your strengths and be truthful with yourself.

Otherwise you’ll end up miscast in a job that’s not right for you.  The last thing you want is to be a square peg pushed into a round hole.

This doesn’t mean you have to stay in your current industry.  As I discovered, my retail skills were transferrable to other industries and other disciplines.  The important thing is to determine what you excel at and apply those strengths to new opportunities.

The lesson here? It’s OK to be who you are. In fact, you need to own it. Your next employer wants it that way.

Embracing Change

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Brrr! When I woke up this morning the temperature had dropped to twenty nine degrees.  Yesterday it was eighty and I was rockin’ flip-flops.  Today we will reach thirty-two if we’re lucky.  But just wait: according to the forecast, tomorrow’s high will be seventy-nine.

That’s Texas for you. If you don’t like the weather just wait a day because it will change.

One of the benefits of my first job out of grad school is that I learned to adapt to change.  We were expected to change jobs within the company every three years on average.  We would master one job, and move on to the next.  From the beginning we could see our career path laid out before us.  It was succession planning at its best.

You know what I learned from that?  Apparently I like change.  Sort of like the old saying, “A rolling stone gathers no moss”, I find myself itching for something new after a few years.

Hubby can rest easy. This does not apply to our relationship, although I will admit to wanting to infuse change into our home in the form of new furniture.  Talk about an expensive change!

For my career, change doesn’t have to involve leaving; it can mean a new position within the same company.  I would just like some advancement or newness – anything to keep from feeling like I’m in a rut.

As a consultant, change is part of my job. While I’m working for one client, I’m constantly in “new business development mode” scouting for work.  My friend calls it the “Fish while you eat” business model.  Even working on retainer for clients, at some point the agreement ends and I’m off to my next gig.

With consultant as my title, simply walking into a company can signal “change” for long-term employees.  Even though I’m only there to help, my presence can trigger fear.  And sometimes distrust. I want to scream, “I’m not like the Bob’s in the movie Office Space!”  (Great movie if you haven’t seen it; well worth the rental)

Yet change is inevitable and we all need to adapt to it.

I made an interesting observation between two clients.  One was well-established, with a mature employee base, probably in the upper forties.  The other was a start-up consisting of Gen Y-ers and Millenials, with the oldest person in their mid-thirties.

At the more established company, I sensed that some of the workers were skeptical of my presence, wondering what I was doing and why I was brought in to help.  Didn’t matter that it had nothing to do with them and that no jobs were in jeopardy.  Any comment I had or request that I made was “change”, and we all know that change is fear.

The younger, start-up company was all about change.  After all, they were plowing into uncharted territory. They were going to succeed or die trying. But fear, if was there any, was hiding.  There was an “all hands on deck” mentality, and I was immediately brought onto the team.  Change was welcomed.

I hope I never lose my ability to embrace change!

Fear of change starts to creep in as we mature.  Even though I like change, lately I’ve found that even I have to push myself to fight through any fear.

I talk a lot about career reinvention at speaking engagements.  Unfortunately I see this fear of change happen a lot, especially to those who have been laid-off or simply want to make a career change. They let fear take over. My guess is that it’s not that they doubt their capabilities, but movement of any kind – either forced through a layoff or on their own – means change.  Which is uncomfortable. And scary.

And that’s unfortunate.

These people are missing out on so much.  Learning, meeting new people, trying something new.  Living. Succeeding.

Yes, they could fail. But what if they succeed?

Let’s all try to embrace change; make it our friend. The more we get to know change the better we will like it.

And that’s a big step in the right direction.