Risk & Business Magazine Knight Archer Insurance Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 23
CAREER REINVENTION
I
f you stop and look back over your
career so far, you’ll see how much
you’ve changed, even if you’ve stayed
in the same career path for years.
Over time, our perspective changes.
We learn from positive and negative
experiences. Sometimes we have to stop
and reflect on our path to see how far we’ve
come!
Career reinvention can be something you
take on as a project, either because you’re
bored in your current career or because you
want to bring your work and your passions
closer together.
Sometimes career reinvention is forced on
us by circumstances – like your company
closing its doors or maybe the arrival of
an evil boss whose nasty attitude makes it
clear that it’s time for you to move on.
We don’t always know when Mother
Nature is going to give us a push – a nudge
that says “You could be doing more with
your career – why not investigate?”
Career reinvention is a much bigger
prospect than just a change of office
location or a new job title. It’s a physical
change in you, no different from a snake
shedding its skin or a hermit crab moving
out of a cramped shell to venture out and
find a new home.
Reinvention is hard work. Reinvention
can cause us to feel strong emotions like
anxiety, fear, loneliness, and confusion. At
the same time, reinvention can feel exciting
and exhilarating. Your emotions may go up
and down like waves.
That’s normal! You are in reinvention. Get
ready to ride with Mother Nature for a
while!
How can you make the most of your
reinvention, whether it was your choice
to reinvent yourself or someone else’s
decision?
The first step is to get a journal and write in
it every day, or as often as you can.
Write about your career and life so far.
Write about what you loved to do when you
were little.
Write about what you’re good at – you are
good at many different things!
Undoubtedly you’ve had the chance to use
some of your gifts in your work already.
Maybe you have other talents that want
to come out and show themselves to the
world!
Don’t rush your reinvention process. If
you need to take a survival job to pay the
bills while your reinvention plays out, do
it. Don’t feel that you are diminished just
because you have a job that isn’t as lofty or
impressive as jobs you’ve held before. So
what?
You are stepping out into new territory.
That can feel scary. Keep breathing and
remember that every living thing changes.
Change is part of life!
ANYONE WHO
WOULD JUDGE YOU
IS NOT SOMEONE
WHOSE OPINION
MATTERS ANYWAY.
Spend time with friends who get your
quirks and your sense of humor. Limit the
time you spend with people who criticize
you or bring you down. You don’t need that
energy around you when you’re shedding
an old skin and stepping into your next
adventure!
Take time for yourself. If working in your
garden gets you out of your busy mind,
then work in your garden whenever
you can. Dance to songs on the radio
or YouTube. Read your favorite books.
Organize your spice cabinet. Do what
makes you feel good. Reinvention is
exhausting.
Don’t feel that you have to solve your
reinvention in your head. You couldn’t
do that even if you tried. Reinvention is
not a logical problem. It is not a Sudoku
puzzle. It’s you opening up to your own
possibilities – something that many or
most of us have never done before.
Apply for jobs if you want to, but don’t feel
that you have to choose a formal, final,
and concrete career direction that will
carry you through from here to retirement.
Your goal in reinvention is to experience
new things, not to make arbitrary rules
for yourself and then feel bound to follow
them!
You may settle on a career direction that
you like at first but learn over time that
it isn’t your cup of tea. You may explore
a career path you never thought you’d
like and find that it speaks to you like no
job you’ve ever had before. Don’t judge
anything y