Time for a new career?

Posted on June 18, 2019 by Categories: News

I’ve had to consider the question, ‘Is it time for a change of career?’ many times. I’ve made career leaps from scientific researcher to lecturer back to researcher to teacher to NLP Practitioner and now Trainer. Within each career, I’ve changed jobs and moved countries and never regretted a thing. I do remember the dilemma of leaving certain posts, though, and making life-changing decisions is never easy when you’re in the midst of it. That being said, my current self-employment is the best ever. It’s hard work, often requires that I work at weekend or in the evenings. But I never, ever have a Sunday night (or any other night) feeling; I have immense freedom and no boss!

 

Are you starting to think about a new job or new career? Sometimes it’s easy to think the grass is greener , so let’s have a think about whether it really is time to make a move……..or not!

 

What’s brought you to this point?

Although in NLP we don’t ask the question why? we do ask the question, how? When we get to the very nub, the heart of the patterns that may have led you to this point, you can start to decide whether staying or remaining are also these habitual patterns running their course or whether you would be better staying and changing something about your current post.

 

Think about these

  • How is it that you have arrived at asking yourself, is it time for a new career?
  • How does this reflect other patterns in your life? Think about ages 0-7 (the imprinting stage), 7-14 (socialisation), 14-21 (modelling) and beyond. Think about how those patterns are repeating now.
  • Are you a people pleaser? To your own detriment?
  • Do you feel a loyalty that is not reciprocated? Are you aware of being overly loyal?
  • Do you reject change? Could a change be a motivator or de-motivator for you to change jobs?
  • Are you a towards or away from person? This is the same as the carrot and the stick – do you work better with rewards, praise and encouragement? Do you prefer to work under pressure? Are you a little bit of both? Remember that away from people act out of fear. All away from motivation occurs because of fear. Would it be better to remove the fear and find a more comfortable motivation strategy?
  • Now, for a little test!

Look at the letters B B b.

  • Are they all the same? Are they all different? Mainly the same or mainly different? This test sheds light on our deep-seated preferences in life, so-called Metaprograms (these are a filtering system we learn at NLP Master level). And this metaprogram or preference tells us how much you prefer change. Change could mean that the job you would like involves lots of changes or you may be seeking whole new job, a new role, even a change of office space. How did you see the letters B B b?

 

  • The same? You like the comfort of the same job. You may stay for years and years.
  • Different? You love change. The only way to keep you in a job longer than 12-24 months is to make changes – if this is you, what changes (in your control)would make you stay? If there are no changes within your control, you’ve been in the job 1-2 years, you’ll be itching for a change!
  • Mainly the same – you’ll enjoy being in a job for longer than 5 years, but you won’t want to wait around for a gold clock!
  • Mainly different – after 2-5 years in one post, you’ll be wanting to make a change

 

What prevents you?

  • What prevents you from resigning? What prevents you from staying? Draw up a list. For many, staying means financial security, ability to pay the mortgage and bills. Is there a way to ease your way out of your current job, whilst re-training for a career you would love to do?
  • The more specificity you can get in answering this question, the more you can either accept or reject those arguments. As we drive down into details, we really find out what we’re happy with and what we’re not.

 

What will you compromise on?

  • What you find important are your Values. Again, these are held deep within the unconscious mind and act as a filter on what we judge as important (note, the judgment is not on good versus bad, right versus wrong, but what’s important to us). If you list what’s important to you and list what you job gets for you, are the two columns aligned? If there is misalignment, you may never quite feel that your job is right for you. You can contact a Master Practitioner of NLP to re-align the Values, but would you want to?!

 

Perception is projection

  • We perceive the world through out 5 senses and then we add an extra layer of self-talk onto those experiences. But curiously enough, we are not so much perceiving the external world as projecting out what we have inside our minds, So the world, as we perceive it, is a reflection of our inner ideas, thoughts, feelings, Values, Metaprograms (deeply-held preferences) and beliefs. How can we exemplify this is more everyday terms? When you are there at an event, be it a party, a meeting, a lottery win(!), school run or any other situation, how we think that situation is going, whether we’re bored or having fun, feeling happy, sad or indifferent, is actually down to the combined thoughts and feelings inside our unconscious mind. Think about it: have you ever been to a family get together or wedding and when you came to talk about it later with someone who was there, that you both have totally different views on it? That’s because you processed everything around you completely different based on your very individual thoughts and feelings. Are things ever as bad as they seem? We can certainly use NLP techniques to learn how we can change our projections if they are not useful.
  • Could your projections do with a tweak?!

 

Still in the dilemma?

  • Dilemmas are created in the mind with the very best of intentions to help you, but often the conflict they create is rather an unpleasant side-effect
  • There are 2 main types of battles going on inside your head
  1. Part of you wants to stay, part of you wants to go. Maybe part of you can be who you want to be, part of you can’t.
  2. You feel unworthy/undeserving/not good enough

Whichever you do – stay or go – remember that sometimes you have to consider that a happier, more fulfilled you may be worth more than some of the drudgery and who can put a price on that? So is it time for a new career? Only you can know.

Let me know how you get on and whether you stay or whether you go!

If you’re thinking of enlivening your current career by using NLP or even becoming a professional Coach Practitioner, have a look at our board accredited trainings https://www.traceycolenlp.com/trainings/