Finding Myself Through Change
I’ve just left my stable government job to launch my own consulting company. It’s both scary and exciting. In our personal and professional lives, change is often really hard. In my first blog, I want to share some learnings from my most recent change journey.
When change is in your control, take time to go deep and reflect on your plans and aspirations beyond the immediate decision.
When deciding whether to return to my stable job or start my own business, at first I fixated only on the specifics of that decision. I made a matrix of pros and cons and ranked my two options against each other. This alone wasn’t enough to make a decision - both options scored comparably, but with high and low points in different areas. Digging deeper, I began a process of evaluating my life as a whole. What are my goals, both personal and professional? What areas of growth do I want to focus on? What gives me joy? What am I tolerating? Doing this work helped me choose between two perfectly good options.Gather wisdom from mentors and friends.
I am not the only person who has weighed tradeoffs and made a significant career change. Open yourself up to the wisdom around you - you will discover one or two trusted people who are willing to share their experiences. You’re not looking for someone to tell you what to do. You’re looking for someone who has life experience and will ask good questions as you work through the process. I had a couple of people like this - they asked me questions like: Where is your heart pulling you? What’s going on in your life right now and what type of work/life balance do you need? What values are most important to you? What do you need to say no to in order to make space for what you want?Be confident in yourself and your decision.
After I made a decision, I questioned myself for a few days and went through the whole evaluation process all over again. It took some time to feel truly confident. A few things that helped me were:Doing affirmation meditations (I use the free app Insight Timer)
Visualization exercises for a positive outcome
Developing an action plan
I am very pleased to now be working as a consultant, having learned a lot about myself in the process.
