Once you land a job or start your business, the game is over, right? You’ll be happy and content forever and you’ll never need the tips and techniques from this series again; “Happily Ever After” in career land. Ahhhh, that feels good. Now, snap out of it. Unless you’re living in a Disney movie, you know this is the farthest thing from the truth. Even if New Lensyou’re lucky enough to find a field of work that makes your passion fires glow, you’ll still need to make sure you re-pot, re-invent, and re-visit yourself if you want to keep the fires burning and have a fruitful and enjoyable career.

If you are not growing and evolving you’re dead. The minute you stop learning about yourself, the world, and different skills, you have really stopped living. Careers are much like gardens in that you:

  • Decide what you want to plant
  • Plant seeds
  • Tend to the seeds with water, sunshine, and care providing space and support for growth
  • Prune out the stuff you don’t want
  • Enjoy the harvest
  • Turn what’s left over back in the soil to provide nutrients for the future
  • Take periods of rest, mini-retirement, and hibernation to prepare for the next cycle

The stage I am talking about in this article is a combination of deciding what you want to plant, tending to your crop, and taking a step back to see what’s on tap for the next cycle. Just like you need to rotate crops for maximum effectiveness, you need to stay fresh and engaged in what you’re doing or else you just become a burned out shell like the guy with the stapler in the movie Office Space.

When you’ve reached a lull and are feeling bored, stifled, or unable to grow any more because you’ve maxed out where you are presently, it is time to re-pot. The need to re-pot is characterized by feeling stuck, stale, lifeless, and generally ready to stretch your legs in a new direction (big or small). Re-potting your career is a lot like re-potting a plant. You need a bigger pot in which to grow. That may mean a more challenging project, position, business opportunity, or company in which to work. It could be a big change or a small change. The bottom line is it needs to stretch you a bit and allow for your life giving and passion filled roots to re-anchor in and extend out into some new space.

Re-inventing oneself is not reserved for the creative artists among us. We’ve all heard the phrase “so and so really re-invented herself with this new CD/art showing/book/movie, etc.” We are all creative beings and we all need to re-invent ourselves now and then. It often gets a bad rap as if exploring and recreating what we want from life is somehow childish and irresponsible. You can almost hearing your parents saying “but it is a good job with a good company why would you want to rock the boat by doing something different?” Listening to someone else’s reasoning on why you should stay stuck in something that no longer lights your fire is akin to eating stale and moldy bread everyday for breakfast and wondering why your tummy hurts. Reinventing is crucial to your success. Remember all those COBOL programmers who made it rich during Y2K? Well, the ones that reinvented themselves are still in successful careers, those that refused to budge turned into a one-trick pony and watched their jobs get eliminated and outsourced. Be the inventor of your own life, not a passive observer. Play, explore, and reinvent yourself on the job and off. Try something new. Even engaging in a hobby, class, or endeavor you always dreamed of in your non-work hours can put a spark back into your life and existing career.

Re-visit your life’s desires, dreams, and values. In Part 2 and Part 3 of this series I emphasize the importance of and walk you through the steps of getting clear on what you really want your life to look like. While your core values won’t change, how you choose to express them in your life can and will change over time. Taking some assessments to help you learn and explore more about your interests, aptitudes, and personality type is a great way to get back in touch with your desires and preferences. Google terms like “online personality assessments” to find some to play around with. Or, consider working with someone who can walk you through assessments like DISC, Myers-Briggs, or Highlands Battery to get the exploratory juices flowing. While I am admittedly biased (and not because I’m a coach myself but because I’ve found tremendous value from my own coaches), hiring a coach is a great way to dig deep and explore what kind of life or career redesign is right for you right now. A coach can help you see what you cannot see because you’re too mired in the day to day “usual” routine. If you’re feeling burned out or stale it may have gotten to be “normal” for you so you don’t even notice it anymore. You simply live numbed out or checked out to life. A good coach can pick that up right away and help you gain new awareness and create an action plan to put the zip back in your days.

Admittedly this phase of career and money is not nearly as cut and dry as hunting for a job or planning a business (and goodness knows they aren’t even THAT cut and dry). Yet, it is important to regularly step back and look at the big picture for your career, money, and life. Take time to look at the whole forest and not just the trees. The time to explore is before you hit a roadblock of epic proportions or find yourself with a big decision to make due to unexpected circumstances layoffs, being forced to relocate, etc… When you tend your garden you want to stay on top of the needs of not only each individual plant but the garden as a whole. Re-potting, re-inventing, and re-visiting helps you do the same for your career.

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Paula Gregorowicz is the Comfortable in Your Own Skin(tm) Coach and you can learn more at her website www.thepaulagcompany.com and blog www.coaching4lesbians.com .

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