Lesson 6: Taking a look at yourself professionally
As if there isn't enough work involved in reclaiming your life, now we have to look at your ability to provide financially for your family. The world has not been standing still while you have been doing the very important inner work you have been doing, but now it is time to look at your career. We will examine any additional skills you may require, if your work complements your new lifestyle and how you currently define success.
What do you want to do now?
We've already discussed your financial needs. The issue now is, how to make that money.
This lesson will take a look at what you are doing to earn a living, and how to evaluate that against your changing needs.
Whether you are a professional or a stay at home parent, you may now find yourself with additional financial obligations. Or, you may find that money is not the major source of your focus. In either case, it might be time to reflect on what you are doing and whether or not it still fits with your life.
You made your career/work choices based on certain circumstances and now those circumstances have changed. You and your ex-spouse may have decided that you would remain at home until the children were in school. You and your ex-spouse may have decided that one of you would get your education and when established, then the other would get the education. You may have made choices based on dreams and hopes for the future that now seem impossible.
In what ways has your situation changed that impact your employment decisions?
It may be time to inventory your skills. What have you done? What skills were required to be successful? What job made you the happiest when you were doing it?
Take a few minutes now to answer the above questions. Go as far back in your working life as you can remember. Outline for yourself what your job title was and your specific job function. What were your responsibilities and what skills were necessary to be successful? Now look at your greatest accomplishment while you were doing that job. What did it take to be successful? How did you feel when you had achieved your goal?
As you progress through each of the jobs you have held see if a pattern begins to emerge from the type of work you did, the skill set required to do it, and the type of work that brought you the greatest amount of satisfaction.
Now, look at your life. Do those types of jobs still fit with who you are becoming or were they merely a way to earn a living or a means to an end? Remember this is a time in your life that you can recreate yourself. What does your ideal job look like and what skills would you have to have to achieve success?
Personality type, core strengths, and personal values all play a part in establishing a new direction or affirming the old one. If you have never taken a personality test, I would encourage you to take one of the many on-line versions. Most of them are free and can really focus your time. I have worked most with the Kiersey Sorter. I also have had experience with Myers-Briggs. I would also suggest working with the book Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, Ph.D.
Of course understanding who you are is important in assessing your life's work, but of perhaps greater consideration are the values that drive those skills. If you were to identify your top ten values, what would they be, and would you be willing to re-orient your life around them? For some, financial stability may be a strong value and life will be built around that. For others, a strong relationship with family would be the anchoring value. There is no right or wrong to what drives you. Knowing it, understanding its power in your life, and being willing to embrace it is the important step. And sometimes, neccesity forces us to temporarily reprioritize our values, but once we have identified them, it becomes very difficult, I would say even impossible, to ignore them completely when making life decisions.
And finally, you may simply want to make a change. You may associate some aspects of your career to the old way of life and want to shed that completely. Be careful about radical decisions; we will take a look at making wise decisions in another lesson.
After taking a personality type inventory, consider the following:
1. Do any of my results surprise me?
2. Have I lost touch with my values or can I clearly identify them?
3. Am I prepared to examine my current employment situation and make sure it meets my needs?
4. What am I prepared to do to make my professional life more aligned with who I am and what I value?
