Pandemic, automation, economic crisis are stomach-churning causes of job disruption. The third quarter of 2020 saw hundreds of millions of jobs thrown out of the marketplace around the world.
Perhaps the crisis is internal-within you. You are burned out and feel disengaged from life or love. Maybe you have a sinking feeling that your skills are inadequate in the modern 21st-century workforce garnished with the pandemic. Perhaps you yearn for something
purposeful, or as a high flier, you are at a plateau.
Whatever the case, trust me when I say the time for change is now. And what better chance than to step up your career or launch a new enterprise. The question is, how ready are you for the big leap?
Ikigai(生き甲斐, pronounced ikigai) is a Japanese concept that means “a reason for being”. The word is used in reference to having a purpose that makes one’s life worthwhile and spurs actions that give satisfaction and essence of meaning to life.
Keeping the Ikigai by Chris Loper in focus, what purpose are you seeking to serve yourself and the larger society?
At some point in my years of a successful career in the financial services industry, I began to trace elements of crisis within. This led me to reach out to a renowned transformational coach who is now my Mentor Coach. Thankfully, I have results to show for that much-needed decision.
What is holding you back?
Many things can hold you back, from trivia to trial to trauma, etc. I will briefly focus on one major hold-back factor.
The Delusion of Dreams
Steve Jobs once said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” This kind of advice has prompted starry-eyed believers to follow their bliss with the expectation that the money will follow. The reality, though, can be harsh.
Millions have fallen prey to the belief that they can turn their dreams into their dream job, career, or calling. Sooner or later, they find themselves disillusioned, broken, overwhelmed, or watch what they expended passion on turn into a daily grind.
To some, it might be a smooth and easy ride to figure out what they want to do with life. Mr. Jobs himself encountered several bumps on the way to success. It was far from being a smooth, easy ride.
Step back for a moment and ponder on these questions:
Are you ready to embark on self-disruption?
Are you ready to ‘take the right risks’?
There are multiple options to these questions. You need to consider what gives you meaning. It is essential to identify your distinctive strengths and the pain points of your desired target market and/or organization.
Identify what gives you meaning
In addition to your passion, think about what you value and why. Values give our lives meaning and stirs resiliency in the face of adversity. Psychologists have discovered that finding meaning in work increases job satisfaction, individual performance, and personal fulfillment but decreases absenteeism, stress, and burnout.
One way to find out what is valuable to you is to think about people you admire and identify the traits that represent something important to you. It could be their commitment to their craft, service to the less fortunate, focus on family, innovation, work habits, honesty, financial security, and so forth. Create a list of several values that you would most like to include in your daily work.
Identify your strengths
Review your strengths and play to your distinctive strengths. People tend to figure out what our strengths are, especially when they give us problems to solve, directly or indirectly, especially the issues that are beyond them. This happens everywhere, including workplaces and families.
Think about how others perceive you. What would they say are your functional skills? Are you good at strategy crafting, spreadsheets, or loving people? What are your soft and hard skills, such as leadership, communication, collaboration, or adaptability? Remember, a colleague’s soft skill, maybe your hard skill.
What problems do you enjoy solving that other people don’t enjoy, especially those they would rather pay you to solve? What problems can you solve that you feel could be real opportunities? What will make you relevant in the workplace or marketplace?
Identify what the market values
Once you identify your organization and target market value, it is important to align your values with your talents, jobs, or your own entrepreneurial venture. Your unique combination may be appealing to multiple opportunities. For example, you value health and well-being. You are a good listener and skilled in communications. This could position you to be a personal trainer or a coach, to growing professions for people with the right mind-set and credentials.
If you value stability and your skillset include leadership, you may find it challenging in today’s unpredictable business environment that needs leaders who are dynamic, agile, and adaptable. To be well suited for today’s unpredictable business environment that needs leaders capable of driving change or managing a crisis, you have to be curious, always be in the moment, and be foresighted. In that case, you may have to reskill or upskill yourself to be in demand in the global job market.
If you are ready to wholly reinvent yourself, you need to examine where your skills and values converge in the marketplace and set a training and coaching path to gain new insights you can translate into meaningful actions. Clear awareness and insights about what you want to do are critical for you to carve a niche for yourself.
Are you ready for a change?
The prospect of career reinvention can be exciting yet daunting. Going through these three steps goes much more smoothly with the guidance and assessments offered by certified coaches.
Are you thinking of embarking on a disruption or transformation journey? Please contact Pearl – email: pearl@coachtransformation.com
Pearl helps corporate individuals, organizations, and business executives develop the right mindset and behaviors required to thrive in today’s highly complicated and constantly changing work and business environment.
