Showing posts with label career coach. Show all posts

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD OF COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS


Instead learn how you can compare yourself to yourself and embrace your progress

I remember when I was a little girl, my mother used to remind me that if I was jealous of another girl's toys, clothes or some other manifestation of her life that I couldn't just "swap" one element of my existence for hers. She used to say, "If you want to trade places with little Annie, remember you have to trade everything in your life for everything in hers." Suddenly, I wasn't so jealous that little Annie had more toys or nicer clothes, because I'd remember how mean her dad was or how terrible she was at math.

It's a silly story, perhaps, as even if I did want to trade places with little Annie, I couldn't have, but the underlying lesson -- that comparing oneself to someone else or looking upon someone else's life with a sense of focused jealousy -- is a dangerous and unhelpful thing.

What makes this even harder is that throughout our lives we're often set up in situations in which others are comparing us, often against our peers. And this can be especially obvious when we're talking about careers, as performance reviews, promotions and even an interview setting can feel like nothing but deciding whether your particular skills, strengths and qualifications are better / more worthy than the person next to you.

I've worked with several clients now who find themselves falling into this trap of comparison as they're trying to transition from one career to another, and do you know what tends to be the trigger? LinkedIn. Before we had the internet, resumes were pretty hush hush -- you only saw another person's accomplishments if you were a recruiter or hiring manager -- but today we've got every piece of work experience, every project, every recommendation and every success blasted on the internet for everyone to see.

Changing careers is already an uphill battle. You have to take a rigorous, 360-degree approach to your job search, perhaps even putting in what you perceive to be more effort than your peers. So even though LinkedIn becomes a great tool for finding future networking connections or learning about roles you're interested in, it can also be a landmine where all of a sudden your own background and experiences start to look woefully inadequate.

BUT HERE'S THE THING.

First of all, LinkedIn is a marketing tool. Just as you wouldn't show up to a beauty pageant after rolling out of bed, you wouldn't show up to a party where all of the world's recruiters are hunting for job prospects without showcasing your best aspects. People who have good LinkedIn profiles do because they've often spent hours curating their greatest accomplishments and impact statements, reaching out to (often) tens or hundreds of contacts requesting recommendations, scouring the internet for media that showcase their work, etc.

 ANYONE can do this with time and effort, which not only means that you can have a stellar LinkedIn profile that looks just as impressive, but also that everyone's profiles should be analyzed with a grain of salt (this is a performance people practice for!).

Secondly, LinkedIn may be the "professional" social network, but just like you shouldn't think someone has a perfect life because they only post happy, bikini beach pictures on Facebook, don't make assumptions about someone's happiness or success based on their LinkedIn profile.

Case in point: I started my career at The Walt Disney Company. I got an MBA from Harvard Business School. I got promoted and worked at Capital One. And I was fucking miserable.

You would never have known this from my smiling profile picture or gleaming statistics. In fact, none of the negative things I experienced from any of my jobs are showcased in my profile. You don't know why I transitioned from role to role. You don't know my salary, what my bosses were like, whether I worked with kind people or whether I faced sexual harassment at work. All you know is that I have some fancy names and that my career appears to be perfect.

When you compare yourself to someone else without full and complete information to drive the comparison, the only thing you are doing is contributing to your own negative feelings about yourself. And when you're already attempting to do something that makes you uncomfortable or that challenges you, this negative energy that you're creating will do nothing but inhibit you from making progress toward your goal. There is absolutely not one ounce of benefit to this behavior.

Here's what to do instead:

1) Keep track of your own strengths, skills, values, accomplishments and impacts. Write down the things that you did in detail, focusing on the people you affected positively or the way you helped the business achieve a goal. Update the list regularly and refer back to it consistently when you're feeling down about yourself.

2) Develop a progress chart that indicates where you want to see forward progress in your life. Do you lack confidence when it comes to networking? Do you feel your resume needs a refresh? Write down the areas that you'd like to see yourself grow.

3) Set specific, time- and action-based goals and instead of comparing yourself to others, compare yourself to yourself. You wanted to revamp your resume over the course of four weeks and did it in 2? Celebrate! You wanted to increase your confidence in networking and you've now completed X informational interviews or attended X in-person networking events? Celebrate this too.

The only fair comparison that you can make...the only situation in which you have complete information...is when you're comparing the person you are today to the person that you were yesterday and the person you want to be tomorrow.

You control your actions, behaviors and emotions today and always. You decide when you want to change and how you want to embrace or react to that change. Stop drawing conclusions about other people's lives or making assumptions about their level of greatness and focus instead on improving your own life and making yourself great. I promise you that the inward focus will not only make you a more tolerant, empathetic and less judgmental individual, but it will also make you realize just how fantastic you are, too.

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Are you Unhappily Employed? Stressed, frustrated and confused by a job that you hate? Download my free eBook to getting unstuck and get on the path to finding a career that makes you happy.

Want to learn more about how we can work together on your individual interviewing skills? Request a free, 30-minute meet and greet and we can chat about you and your goals!

Gabrielle "Gabby" Bill is a career coach and consultant who believes everyone should be working in a job that leaves them feeling fulfilled. She coaches groups and individuals through a reflection process, uncovering often hidden motivations, values, goals and skills as they relate to their career. These reflections are then parlayed into concrete action plans to guide clients through the process of finding, creating and landing their dream jobs. You can learn more about her services by visiting www.gabriellebill.com. 
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SURVIVING MY LAYOFF



(If you haven't already read part one of this series, where I detail the story of my layoff, please click here to check it out!)

 There's no doubt that getting laid off was a shock to my system. At first it didn't even seem real. I felt as though any moment I'd wake up from this crazy dream and be right back where I started.

But as the days and weeks passed by, as I completed my 30-day "transition" at work and no longer had to report to the office, the reality of my situation sank in, and so did the confusion.

You know how when you stand on a dock overlooking the ocean, it appears that the water just continues on forever? Well, that's sort of how it feels to lose your job and not really know what step to take next. Of course, your life situation will predicate some of your choices (obviously if you have a family to support, you'll be in a different position than I was), but for me, it felt as though there were limitless possibilities of what I could do next. That's a liberating thought, but also a terrifying one.

I had been following a path, even if it had been the wrong path in many ways, for the last 10 years, and even though there were twists and turns, I had never strayed too far from the road. Now, I had a paintbrush in my hand, and only I could decide whether to continue painting or start on an empty canvas.

They (whoever "they" are) say that in these traumatic moments, you begin to take inventory of yourself, and often when you do this in earnest, you find you aren't the same person you once thought you were. We spend so little time in introspection, pushing away or ignoring our emotions, wants, needs and desires, that when we make these punctuated attempts, it can be startling to notice just how much has changed.

This was very much the case for me. A deep, strong desire within me was calling for me to work from home, to find a career with innate flexibility and to operate, as much as possible, on my own terms. I was sick and tired of marketing -- I no longer found it inspirational or challenging, and the thought of returning to yet another job in this field gave me pangs of anxiety. I knew I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I had never, ever been able to figure out what kind of business I'd want to run. I found myself dancing around in circles trying to piece together all of these thoughts, while not forgetting the reality that I needed to work, and ultimately I'd end up so frustrated that I'd just push it all away.

Then I remembered career coaching. And not in the, "Oh, this is what I want to do with my life" vein, but in the, "Oh there are actually people out there specifically trained to get me out of this funk" way. As a Harvard Business School alumna, I got access to three complimentary sessions with a career coach, and I soon discovered that as a SoFi member, I also had access to a coach. I took advantage of both, figuring that in my uber-confused state, I'd need as much help as I could get.

My HBS coach, Jill, wound up being a life changer. At first, she sent me a few worksheets that were exceedingly frustrating to fill out. All she was asking me to do was to identify things I liked and didn't like about my past jobs, or things I wanted from a new job. And yet the intense fear of listening to my own gut instincts paralyzed me. It took weeks of staring at those papers before I gained the courage to actually write something down. Even then, things were clear as mud.

I remember getting on the phone with Jill for our second session, completely fed up with myself. I had spent (what felt like) hours working on the assignments she'd given me, and all I could come up with was that I liked to write, give speeches/presentations, solve problems and help other people. But looking at those, I saw four distinct skills, not a job category.

Then she said the magic words: "Have you ever thought of becoming a career coach? I think you might really enjoy it."

I hadn't. Not once. And yet, upon further examination of my past, we saw that so many signs pointed to this line of work. I had signed up as a career counselor and advisor on two online "helping" platforms, and had loved reviewing people's resumes and doing mock interviews. I had relished the chance to lead the recruiting process for Disney Vacation Club's professional interns for nearly three years, working hand-in-hand with HR to find resumes, interview candidates and onboard the newbies. At Capital One, I had wanted nothing more than to be a people manager, and when I successfully recruited two all-star candidates, I was quickly the go-to person on the team for help with hiring. When I looked back on my corporate experience, it wasn't the marketing accolades that I remembered, but the impact I had on the growth and development of others.

If I'm being honest, it's not like discovering these things suddenly made everything fall into place and make perfect sense. But what it did do was give me a kernel of hope. It showed me a) that there was value in my skill set, and b) that there were possibilities for fulfilling work beyond what I had been doing for the last decade. And at that stage, the hope that this inspired meant everything.

I was laid off on September 7, 2015, and on November 15, 2015, I hit publish on my website. Was my business perfect? Did I have every piece in place and feel uber confident that I'd sell out in a month? Absolutely not (and if I'm honest, being an entrepreneur is a never-ending process of growth and change). What I did know was that, for the first time in my life, I was laying the groundwork for the future of my career, cement and bricks in my own two hands. And the excitement and exhilaration of pursuing something so bold was a feeling I'd never quite felt before. Walking into the unknown, and continuing to forge my own path, is the scariest thing I've ever done. Yet I wouldn't trade the experience for the world.

(If you'd like to learn more about career coaching and how the process might be beneficial for your job search, feel free to grab a free, 30-minute consultation with me. I'd love to learn more about your challenges and discuss how we might work together to move you through them!)

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Sign up for email updates (no spam here, I promise). You'll also get a FREE copy of my guidebook, 7 Strategies to a Seamless Job Search, just for signing up.

Gabrielle "Gabby" Bill is a career coach and consultant who believes everyone should be working in a job that leaves them feeling fulfilled. She coaches groups and individuals through a reflection process, uncovering often hidden motivations, values, goals and skills as they relate to their career. These reflections are then parlayed into concrete action plans to guide clients through the process of finding, creating and landing their dream jobs. You can learn more about her services by visiting www.gabriellebill.com. 
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BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO



Careers can be a lot like dating.

It all starts with courting. 
You're assessing potential employers, trying to see how many qualities they have that you can "check off" your list. Then you pitch yourself to them, crossing your fingers that they see only your best qualities (because that's all you're showing them, of course).

Then the first date. 
BAM! You've scored an interview. Your palms are a bit sweaty. You've rehearsed some small talk, just in case there's awkward silence. When you leave, you just know your interviewer is going to talk about you to their friends...you just hope they're saying nice things.

The terrible, horrible wait. 
The three-day text rule is unbearable. You want to call and ask for an update, but don't want to seem clingy or desperate. Then just when you can't bear it anymore, your phone buzzes! You got the job!

The honeymoon.
Your first day is great. Meeting your teammates is like going to a non-awkward family dinner where everyone loves you and wants to talk to you. Every assignment is new and exciting, and even the annoying curmudgeon on the team is bearable. Why doesn't he realize how awesome this place is?

...but then it declines. 
Time goes on. It's been six months since you've gotten a new challenge. Your assignments feel rote and while you do your best to get 'em done, your heart's not in it. You can't believe that you ever thought this emotional, flawed human being that is your boss was perfect. And why won't your direct report stop leaving banana peels on your desk?! Patience? Yeah, that's gone for good.

And then you feel guilt.
"But careers are hard work," you tell yourself! "I made a commitment, and I'm not just going to throw in the towel when things get tough."

Or are you?

Just like realizing the person you thought was "the one" maybe isn't, it's hard to know whether it's time to walk away from a job opportunity that once seemed so promising. And this can be especially scary when you know it's not as simple as walking out the door, declaring yourself "single" and being handed a replacement job that perfectly suits your needs.

But just as it is frightening, staying in a job where you're truly unhappy, unfulfilled or simply not challenged can be just as detrimental. Just as we deserve a caring, loving partner, we deserve a job that makes us feel like we're contributing to the world in a way that's meaningful to us.

So how do you decide when to stay and when to go?

1) Start paying attention to yourself and your emotions.
Spend a few days in an "out of body" experience at work. What I mean by this is, I want you to monitor yourself and keep track of how you feel and react in the situations you encounter. What emotions fill you up when you wake up in the morning? How does that change as you get ready for work or as you walk into the office? What fluctuations occur throughout the day as you complete certain tasks, interact with certain people or handle certain challenges?

2) Chart your emotions and look for patterns.
Do you feel excited about the work day, but then find yourself falling into a funk when your boss criticizes your work? Do you want to bang your head against the wall when you're asked to do one task, but then feel the stirrings of excitement at the next? It's important for you to identify the source, or sources, of your discomfort and then see what you can attach them to. For example, does your unhappiness primarily revolve around a person or group of people you work with, a process or procedure mandated by your group or company, a task or set of tasks or something else entirely?

3) Stop thinking about your current job for a moment and try to imagine your ideal job. What are you doing in this job? Where are you working? Who are you working with? What emotions do you feel while you're doing this job? Break down your ideal job into discrete components, rather than looking at the job as one holistic piece. Perhaps you're working outside feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin, while teaching children a new skill? Perhaps you're in a high-rise building wearing a sharp suit and being clapped on the back by a teammate after securing a deal.

4) Draw some conclusions. How does your ideal job compare to your current job? Are there a lot of overlaps, but just a few key gaps, or is it mostly the opposite? Are you noticing that your unhappiness is tied to an area of your current job that is more easily changed (like a nasty teammate, a very specific task you don't enjoy) or to something more permanent or pervasive (the company's broader philosophy or approach, the entire job family in which you're working)?

When you can pinpoint the root of your dissatisfaction, you should be able to see whether or not the problem is with an aspect of your job, this specific job or your broader career. If it's one of the first two, the path forward is simpler. Sometimes something as small as an honest conversation with your boss can help remedy the issue, or if you like your company but not your job, perhaps you can talk about an internal transfer that would rejuvenate you. If you dislike your company, but not your job, you at least know it'll be pretty cut and dry to transfer your skills to another role in your field, and provided you can keep up a positive attitude while you're waiting, you can hold on to your job and search for something new while keeping your paycheck.

Of course, sometimes it becomes obvious that you've just outgrown your career, or maybe you realize you were never well-suited for it in the first place (and trust me, this is WAY more common than you know). For me, it became obvious that a career change was necessary when I was so unhappy I prayed to get sick, just so I didn't have to go into work. Couple that draining emotion with the fact that I no longer felt inspired by my field, and it felt like walking through quicksand just to get through the day.

But what do you do if you discover that a career change actually would be beneficial? How do you navigate the waters of trying to figure out what you do want to do, how your skills transfer and how you can break into a field where you potentially have no direct experience?

You probably won't be surprised to hear that my advice is to hire a coach, and I'm not just saying this because I am a coach, but because I credit my own career success to the hours I spent working with coaches (and I still have my own coaches today).  Does this mean you can't change careers on your own? Absolutely not. But for me, having a support system, and knowing there was someone out there with expertise that had my back, gave me the confidence, accountability and extra push that I needed to make decisions and take action, even when it scared the living daylights out of me.

A great career coach can help you wade through all of the conflicting emotions spinning through your head. They can help you nail down the framework for a job that will actually align with your strengths, skills, values and preferences. They can be the objective outsider who sees beyond your limitations, who challenges your skewed belief systems and who pushes you to embrace new perspectives and possibilities. They can help you set goals, stick to them and ultimately move you into a new job faster and with less trial and error than you could on your own.

Regardless of the path you choose, know that it is NORMAL to want to change careers, and that realizing that you're ready for something new is a sign of growth, not of being broken. Embrace that change within you and progress onward to discover the new, exciting person you're about to become. Good luck!

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Sign up for email updates (no spam here, I promise). You'll also get a FREE copy of my guidebook, 7 Strategies to a Seamless Job Search, just for signing up.

Gabrielle "Gabby" Bill is a career coach and consultant who believes everyone should be working in a job that leaves them feeling fulfilled. She coaches groups and individuals through a reflection process, uncovering often hidden motivations, values, goals and skills as they relate to their career. These reflections are then parlayed into concrete action plans to guide clients through the process of finding, creating and landing their dream jobs. You can learn more about her services by visiting www.gabriellebill.com. 
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