Your dream life may feel far away from you at this moment, but I'm here to tell you that it may be closer than it appears. In fact, it may be just around the corner, hidden from view only because you have yet to discern what it is you're actually looking for.
Out of Your Head And Onward Into The Next Phase of Your Life
In my previous article,
How to Get Unstuck & Get Out of Your Head, I unpacked the importance of interrupting the pattern of thinking too much and getting stuck in our heads. This is especially critical for those of us contemplating a change in our jobs or careers.
When we get stuck in our heads, we take ourselves out of the game. And when we aren’t in the game, we can’t make any real progress. Rather, we watch the world go by as we dream about possibilities, without taking any of the necessary steps to realize them.
The best way to get back in the game is to hit the pause button: to empty our heads of all our fears, anxieties, questions, and hopes, and get them down on paper. By doing so, we filter the things we can’t control and hone in on the areas where we do have some control.
We can then use our freed-up headspace to start thinking creatively about what we
really want from our job or career. From there, we can consider bigger-picture questions regarding who we want to be and what we'd like to be doing with our lives.
Armed with this information, we can now shift our focus into action mode. The rest of this article will walk you through the steps to take in order to generate a list of available action items that will enable you to make progress towards where you want to go. Finally, as an extra step to ensure you are making the best choice, I’ll explain why it’s critical to seek out someone who has done what you are considering. Your future self will thank you.
How To Move Forward With Your Goals
- Imagine future success: From the exercise in the previous article (LINK TO IT), you began defining a future vision of what you’d like to be doing and how you’d like to be in your career. By doing so, you’ve developed a sense of what "success" looks like for you. You can envision it and imagine what it will feel like when you reach that destination. By doing this, you’ve created a gap between your present situation and your future desired state. Your brain doesn’t like this and will begin to fill in the gaps. Excellent. Now you’re ready for the next step.
- Brainstorm possibilities: This is an exercise in quantity over quality. Generate as many ideas as you can regarding what you can do to move this project or goal forward. Think expansively. What can you do today? Next week? Next month? Who can you ask for help? What resources or skills do you need to acquire? For this exercise, I encourage you to use a whiteboard, post-it notes, or if you are digitally inclined, there are some great mind mapping resources out there. If possible, include others in this exercise to help generate ideas from the practical to the insane. Brainstorming with colleagues, mentors, or a coach can help you examine the opportunities from different perspectives and consider options that might be hidden from you due to your proximity to the project. Plus, sometimes it’s those wildest ideas that generate the most exciting possibilities.
- Organize your list(s): Now begin to sort, order, and sequence your swarm of brainstormed ideas. Some ideas will flow together, and some will be unactionable and can be discarded. Some can be done in tandem while some need to be done sequentially. Others may require help or delegation. As you work through this process, you’ve essentially created your own project roadmap for achieving your goal. You have a list of steps, you can assign due dates, and now you are ready to act.
- Define the next step and get moving: Take the first item on your list. Clarify exactly what you need to do next in order to advance the action. Add it to the top of your to-do list. Rinse and repeat. You are making progress. Progress leads to momentum. Momentum increases motivation to act.
When I coached thirty people for thirty minutes last December, I made sure to ask each one of them, at the end of the short session, “What are you taking away from today?”
Most replied that they realized they needed to stop thinking, get their thoughts down on paper, organize them, and take action.
Simple, yet profound. In each person I spoke with, I noticed a shift. When we started, there was confusion. Hesitancy. Eyes darting around, looking away from the camera as they searched for answers to my questions. By the end, there was nodding, note-taking, and brightness in their eyes. Ideas were crystallizing. A path that heretofore was blocked, masked by clouds of self-doubt and the fear of taking that first step, suddenly opened like clouds parting after a storm. You could see the sunshine on their faces.
They felt like they were back in control.
Asking For Help Always Helps
One last thing to do Now that you have clarity on what you want to be doing, it’s time to tap into your network and ask others for help. This will help you double-check your thinking and make sure you haven’t overlooked any blind spots.
Plus, by speaking with people who have done what you seek to do yourself, you will get a far more accurate picture of what your new life will look like.
In Dan Gilbert's book,
Stumbling on Happiness, he discusses how we are terrible at imagining how we will feel in the future. We are too anchored to the present. What we feel now, we project into the future. And we are often wrong.
The best thing to do to figure out whether a decision will make you happy in the future is to tap into your network and seek someone who has done what you are contemplating.
If it’s an internal move in your company, seek out someone in that department or job function that recently moved into it. If you’re thinking about joining another company, find someone who recently left your company to go there or a similar firm or someone who recently started at the company you are looking at. Ask them, “How are you feeling about your decision after being there for six months?”
Other good questions to ask include, "What has surprised you at your new job?" "How have your expectations been met or not?" Or perhaps, "What questions, if any, do you wish you would have asked before making the change?"
Why is this step so critical First, talking with others about their
actual experience is a much better indicator of what your experience will be like in that new role. It removes the rose-tinted glasses and helps us see more clearly. Second, it helps with relevancy. The world continues to move faster and faster. And when we seek counsel, we tend to talk to our mentors who are older. They provide great general advice - about the industry, the company. However, their specific advice may no longer be relevant because the world of work that they grew up in is vastly different from the world today. By all means, seek their counsel. But make sure to find someone who recently moved into the role that can give you the specific advice you need to make the right decision.
Final Thoughts
Whew. You made it this far. Take a moment to celebrate your efforts. This is not easy. It takes time and deliberate effort, but the effort is worth it. Especially if you want to make the right decision and not find yourself stuck in the wrong role because that green grass turned out to be full of weeds and rocks.
To get here, you first had to slow down and then get everything out of your head. This freed up creative space in your head that was previously denied to you because your head was full of worry and anxiety. By tapping into this creative energy, you began to shift your vision and energy to a world of possibility. That’s the goal of the Being-Doing exercise from the previous article - using your creative energy to begin imagining the life and career you want. Then, you brainstormed possibilities - ideally with friends, mentors, or a coach. Once your ideas are organized, you could then talk to others in order to make the best decision.
Sometimes, the grass truly is greener on the other side. Other times, the grass beneath your feet is in fact quite green, you're just not looking at it. In either case, by asking questions – both of yourself, and of others – you’re more likely to make the best decision for yourself. For your career. And ultimately, for your overall sense of well-being
