My favorite day of the year is January 1st. I remember when I was in my 20s and waking up in my Brooklyn shared apartment, and thinking “Ah, I have nothing I need to do today.”
This remains true to this day. I love the relief of getting through the holidays, which seem to start with Halloween and steamroll right through when the Ball drops.
Ah, the tender freshness of our resolutions. The possibilities and hopes for a new year ahead.
If changing your work has been on your list for any number of years, your resolve may no longer be fresh and springy, but getting brittle like a dried twig, I’ve got some news to share with you. You can change your career mid-life. People in their 30s, 40s and 50s change their careers. You can be one of them.
I’ve got a lot of tips floating in my head to offer you now, but I am going to start with ones that you can do while still lying in bed on New Year’s Day. Here goes:
- Daydream. Yep, that thing you were scolded for in school is what I’m encouraging you to do right now. Let your mind wander and picture your ideal work environment.
- Where are you sitting?
- What are you wearing? (I worked with a client who really wanted to be able to wear jeans to work. He went from a corporate environment to Yahoo where casual is practically the uniform.)
- What kinds of people are you surrounded by?
- What kind of work are you doing?
Give yourself permission to let your mind wander and have fun with this. If you want more structure, set the timer on your phone for 5 or 7 minutes.
- Capture the Details. Okay, you may need to get out of bed, just for a minute, for this one! Go get something you can write on. Get a piece of paper, your laptop, or take notes on your phone. Whatever works. But now capture the details of where your mind just went:
- Was there sun streaming into an office window?
- Were you engrossed in a writing project?
- Brainstorming in a strategy session?
- Working collaboratively with someone?
Capture the nuance and details your daydream. They are yours. Hang onto them.
- Sense of Possibility. Okay, I know what you may be thinking. This isn’t practical if you don’t know what it is you want to DO! That is true. What I want you to take away from this exercise is the sense of possibility. I want you to capture some of the specific texture of what you want in your work life. Write down the things that lift the corners of your mouth and your spirits.
The images you conjure in your daydream are little signposts for you to watch for in your future. By thinking them up and writing them down you are putting a stake in the ground for yourself. Yes, you are going to need to do work to get you there. There are plenty of “I can’ts” and “I don’t knows” to clutter your path. So let the possibility of your own ideal pull you forward.
This brings us to my final tip, and it is super useful in so many areas of your life:
- Limited and Expansive Beliefs. Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle.
- On the top left column, write: Limited Beliefs.
- On the top right column, write: Expansive Beliefs
- Then write one thing first under Limited Beliefs, i.e., “I don’t know what else I would do”.
- Now go to the Expansive Beliefs column and write about what you just wrote under the Limited Beliefs column, but in a more expansive way. It has to be true for you, it can’t be B.S.
- e.g., “I might not know exactly right now, but I’m smart and hardworking. When I put my mind and effort to something, I know I can figure something better out.”
See! Do this with as many Limited Beliefs as you can. For each one write corresponding, and true expansive ways of thinking about the issue.
So there you have it, and exercise you can do while still lying in bed on New Year’s day. Hopefully you are not hungover, but clear eyed, relieved to have the past year behind us and open to possibility for yourself in the new year ahead. It’s a start.
- New Year, New Career - December 25, 2014
