Career Change

I have too many job opportunites, help me choose!

by Unre Visagie

Are you one of those lucky people that have too many job opportunities? For your career to thrive you need to make the right job choice. Let master career coach, Unre Visagie, show you how to make the right job choice.

Slide 1 (The solution to grab new exciting challenges of your choice)

We are looking at people that say, they have too many choices, and how do they choose? When we all work and invest together for the benefit of everybody, we will get more benefits. The key thing is to do first for others. When making these choices in your own best interest there is a solution where you can look at the exciting challenges and the great returns you can have from making your choices. You have to know what you currently do for whom. Why did you get into the position where you have all these choices?

You prepare and communicate to influencers. You engage and communicate the work that you enjoy doing and that is valued. Recently, with John, who had a fantastic position, it was very clear that if he keeps on doing the same he will have less than he can have. Referring back to Einstein’s old saying that if you keep on doing the same thing expecting different results it may be close to insanity. It is something to keep in mind.

Slide 2 (Know what you currently do for whom)

Let’s look at people who have too many choices and have the perception that it’s difficult to exercise just one choice and lose the others. When you make the right choice it becomes clear that there’s no doubt. You don’t have any feeling of loss, you move from those perceptions, because they are just perceptions, to the great spaces where you know exactly why you’ve made the choice and what you expect back. You can communicate clarity to everyone around you.

You have to know what you currently do for whom. Why is it so valuable that you have all these choices? Let’s look at simple ways to understand and discuss what you say no to and what you say yes to. That is where a man with a plan has all the benefits. ‘No’ is probably one of the more profitable words in the English language, as mentioned by Jack Welsh. When I sat with John and said, “Ok, let’s look at what you say no to” it was great stress because he didn’t want to say no to anything. What do you say yes to? What are the consequences when you say yes to certain things? Yes often means a three year commitment and where are you going to be in three years? You can never quite control it but at least you can make the best choice with your current insight.

Slide 3 (Prepare to communicate to the influencers)

Let’s look at those choices. When moving from the perceived boxes to the great spaces you have to prepare to communicate to the influencers.  How do you prepare? You discuss it with people around you. You can start right now. It’s amazing what the people around you know. When John discussed it with people around him, including some of his clients in big mining companies and clients in big IT companies they collaborated with, he was amazed to find that his choices were even more than he was aware. However, they also helped him to understand the future of the industry, the future of the consequences of his choices with much greater clarity, factual and grounded in reality. When John practiced, he could approach the company he wanted, that didn’t even have a job at that time. He should have the job shortly, in January or February.

Slide 4 (Engage and communicate)

Lastly, John engaged with his clear, prepared stories. A man with a plan is welcome everywhere, a man without a plan people usually  leave alone to figure himself out, they’re just kind to you, it’s not as rude as some people think. He approached companies with his clear, practised plan and showed respect and acknowledgement to the people he recognized as leaders in the broad industry, whom he could see was on the fast track. Why are they on the fast track? Learn from them. They guided him and introduced him to the right people that can give him the job. It’s a very straightforward process but people need that clarity.

Slide 5 (Start with the purpose, the why)

You need clarity of purpose, with objectives and tasks, dynamically calibrated with your own long-term career vision and mission. This helps you to align with the company’s long-term vision and you’re seen as a strategic contributor, which further puts you up the ladder. We find this is a very important process, like in John’s case, he really couldn’t answer this three months ago, now he can tell you in one minute.

Slide 6 (The right change thinking discussion)

This is the second tool amongst the list of templates we use that you can re-use with your friends, because they are free on the web. There are rules in every company, every industry, every client environment; every team has its subculture of rules. Understand those rules, influence them perhaps slowly, but don’t waste your time fighting and being angry. John was very unhappy with his current company because he could see he contributed more, but their compensation structure didn’t allow for him to earn more, so their rules made John earn less.

It turns out that he can influence the rules, we prepared him to influence the rules in the meantime, to say that I am experiencing stress, but show that I care, show that I respect, how do we go forward? He then proceeded anyway, without the rules being changed, he didn’t waste time, he played where he can make decisions. He played where he has influence and it’s known, he started contributing more and communicating better. He’s moving his line to where more becomes known to him, so his space for production grows and he’s now very much a strategic player. That is the other alternative, where his current company may treat him in a way where it will not be practical for him to leave. At least he has all these choices.

Slide 7 (The approach to engage people should be)

Let’s look at a simple way that you can use right now. John identified the people that he admired and why he admired them, he went to them with clear respect, recognition and acceptance. All of us love respect, recognition and acceptance. One of my favourite professors always said: “Applause, applause, anything for applause!” Everybody is a sucker for that. Use it, but be genuine, if you go with false thank yous you will have problems. When you have a plan, you’ve done your homework, you’ve talked to people around you, you’ve prepared, then you approach the people with open and closed questions. All of this detail is available free on the website; use it. The reason we made it free is that you need these tools to talk to people around you, it’s critical that you can freely engage the people around you. They can also watch the videos and do it free. We come into the game when we can accelerate you and add extra value. Let’s look at the website quickly. There are specific, measurable, accountable resources, time and rewards.

Slide 8 (careerdevelopmentplan.net)

When you look at the website, you will see the tools and the resources. We have organized each block of tools on the website to focus on a specific area of a stress or growth opportunity. When you look at your career choices, we go to Career Planning and Performance. To demonstrate the free tools that is available which John also used in his coaching. We’ve bundled them into big, logical groups where you can look at various career level changes, resumes and the smart goal setting, which I want to point out specifically. You must have specific, measurable, accountable resources time and monitor, planning, performance etc. Every aspect is organized into groups like this. When we look at approaching people with open and closed questions, it is part of that group of tools.

Slide 9 (I have too many choices, how do I choose?)

Having too many choices, how do I choose? Let us summarize the whole process. People normally have perceptions of difficulty of choice and the solution is: get more information, talk to more people, get clarity and get rid of any fears and uncertainties. Fear just stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. Fail just stands for First Attempt in Learning. Everything that we have learnt we learnt through trial and sometimes losing some skin in trying to ride a bicycle. It never stops, but as we go higher, we get more concerned about what people will think. We get more worried about coming across as someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing. The process is simple and clear and it avoids most of those risks.

The process is: know what you do, prepare to communicate what you do, engage influencers and communicate to them. I find very few people can tell you their store of assets and their expertise. In John’s case, his top skill is probably that he has a very good interface, people enjoy being around him, that is a core skill for him. He was very uncomfortable to put that in his CV, so we got nice examples, now it’s in his CV. The other thing that he had difficulty with was his golden thread.

The golden thread leading to your key to success is simply where John made decisions in the same direction from a very young age. A service to people, a great curiosity to understand things, that’s what’s been driving him since school days. He never realized that he could put in his CV that he’s been consistent in how he made decisions. He had quite a few job changes, that is why we had to show consistency with the golden thread, this is built into the stories on the site. He had an awesome asset list that only became clear when he talked to clients, colleagues and friends. This caused him some discomfort, but he now has a very powerful story to tell around his CV.

He realized his external resources, the number of people who were prepared to help him and introduce him, introduce him to people who can introduce him, all of that and learning some skills that he now requires knowing where he wants to go. It’s all available, he just had to have a plan and engage. He’s building his own staircase and climbing it, which could be scary, but we explained that fear and risk could be managed.

Start with exploring, preparing, engaging and in the process you will grow like John did. Your job, company and industry must align while growing your asset list. Secondly, you must align your job, work and career. You are continuously in charge of your future; you keep on doing preparation, exploration and engagement. You will always be secure and safe, and a desired employee. You will get huge increases, like John, in a time when nobody around you will get increases. John ended up with insight, knowledge and confidence because he had a plan and a clear story. John moved from the perceived boxes and too many choices and uncertainty to absolute certainty about where he’s going next, how he’s going to use and grow his asset list.

Slide 10 (Business toolset, personal toolset)

Having too many choices and choosing comes to down the business toolset and the personal toolset that I’ve shown you on the website. Please watch out for the next Career Maker System email. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and I hope you will realize the privilege of having too many choices deserve that you go and explore, prepare and engage these choices to get absolute clarity about the one that will work best for you. Thank you for listening.

How To Find (or move to) The Job You Love

by Unre Visagie

how to find the job you love

Stuggling to find the job you love?

Want to move to a job you actually enjoy?

Let master career coach, Unre Visagie, show you in the free coaching video how to go about finding the job of your dreams. He explains the process using simple steps and methods anybody can use right now to find that dream job! Just hit the play button.

Remember to leave your comment and questions below in the comments section, we would love to answer them.

How to find the job that you love, and that you love to do every day, or how to move to the job you like, which is more often the case and the better option. The issue is to have fun and to earn significantly more money. What typically happens to people is that there are perceptions, the perceptions are almost like cages or boxes or prisons. The key to get from here to the big smiley face on the other side is with you. You have the key. The key to getting the right job that will lead to success lies with you only. You have to open the door and move.

That move could be very scary because we have these perceptions. For example fear, fear represents False Evidence Appearing Real. You can’t fail, because as you move, as you look, as you change, fail represents the First Attempt in Learning. You have to push the boundaries so you can move. Each of us must move by pushing our boundaries and overcoming the fear of failure. If we get rid of these perceptions in some way, we can get from here to the successful man. The first thing, if you want to find the ideal job, is to answer the question: what is the ideal job?

We have to answer the question who are you? If I ask you who you are, can you answer me in a few minutes? I have found that very few people can. We have built multimillion dollar companies where I was responsible for culture and hire, and it’s very unsettling to see how many people do not really know where they want to go, they just want a job, they have to earn money. One can understand that, and that’s where the prison comes from. Let’s look at telling your stories clearly. What are your assets in work? What are your assets in life? How much would you really like to earn? What are you prepared to do to get to have fun in work, life and earnings? If we look at your assets, what are they now? On the website, careerdevelopmentplan.net you can find a whole range of things you can do to help you unpack your assets right now. These are related to your experience, relationships, aptitude and they tell powerful stories about who you are. We are still a people that communicate best and hear best with powerful stories.

The key thing here is, to find the job that you really like, what must you add? What must you do more of and what must you do less of? What are you going to say no to and what are you going to say yes to? If you don’t know, nobody will know. Fortunately it’s practical to know. To recap, very few people realize what their life income will be. If you look at your life income over a lifetime, it is really worth managing. It is worth managing as if it is a project, as if it is a business plan. It could be millions, and any project where you even spend $100 000, will be managed with a project plan and a full business plan. Returns on investment, what the outcomes must be, and what does success look like? Why not do the same for your career?  Life income is on the website, and it’s interesting to look at the number of dollars, to get awareness, and think about how to manage it.

Secondly, we like to look at all the areas of life. We’re just concentrating on work and career today. On the website, careerdevelopmentplan.net, there is a quick check for areas of your life, are they balanced? What are you prepared to risk? What are you prepared to invest to get to the smiley man? If you look at work, it always starts with the work you do, the job you want, because the work defines the job you do and you will have a number of jobs. The job you do defines your career. You have to choose which industry and which company will be the best for you. If you follow this approach you have a choice. Everybody has a choice, but while we perceive boxes and we are scared, we have fear, we are worried about failure, we cannot move and we just work for money, which I find to be a very sad situation. I am privileged that I have been able to do what I choose to do for over 20 years now. I do work 80 hours a week, but it’s because I choose to do it.

We have done this work pro bono at schools, at universities and in our own companies and at probably one of the most successful incubators ever built. That is where we packaged it, in incubators.

Let’s look at your purpose. Your purpose must relate to who you are. You must unpack who you are to get your purpose clear. This must be so clear that a so-called elevator speech must be practical for you. You must be able to tell somebody your purpose in a few sentences, your purpose in your career, your work, and your future. Your purpose is formed by the current goals you have and the goals are informed by your tasks. The objective here is to get the work that you choose, to which you say yes and to what you will say no. If you are clear about whom you are and where you are going, yes and no become very easy. If you don’t know, it’s impossible. Aligning your tasks with your vision and mission, the goals with your vision and mission, your vision and mission will be dynamic, it will keep on changing. It’s very natural for people to change as we get new information. You must realize that this vision and mission will keep changing. Then you want to aim for who you want to become, your new aim clearly communicated with powerful stories.

Let’s look at how to do it. It’s a simple three step process. It’s like building your own staircase while you climb it, which is why you’ve got to have a system and clarity. All of these tools are given for free on careerdevelopmentplan.net and we offer professional services on top of that, but it’s all free if you do it as we recommend here.

External to you are all the resources you may ever need. You must know what you need, and how to ask for it. The process is right there on the web. The first step is know your assets, what is internal to you, the value that you can bring to a company, workplace, clients, people around you, social, financial, etc. You can simply come out and explore and get new information. It is all here, and the process to ask is simply to go and say thank you to people. Ask them clearly, could they tell you about the things you want to know? Use the normal open and closed questions; this is also available on the website. You explore, you get the information, you internalize the information and you start moving.

Step two you prepare. With preparing you go outside, you talk to groups that you select, family members, people that you have identified in the industries and companies you are interested in. Join associations, join magazines, there are so many ways that you can get information, so many ways that you can prepare. Once you are prepared it’s easy to engage. A man with a plan is never refused. While a man who asks for help, nobody knows how to help him because what exactly do you need? What do you want? Why do you want it? How can I do it? It must be clear, specific, measurable, accountable, rewards, resources, and timing, with a deadline that can be monitored.  It is just like a project plan.

Once you have engaged, you are really moving. Now you can move to the work you want, becoming the person you want to become, full of life, and your work and career will become very clear. From this you will develop goals, from goals tasks. You will check dynamically that this is in line with your vision and mission, which we like to call your beacon. The beacon you aim for. When you’ve planted your beacon you can tell anybody who you are, you can tell them what you want and why, and you can tell them how you are going to about it. So many people in our coaching program, in our companies and in our pro bono work were amazed at the number of choices they had. They only became aware of it during the process, because they were stuck in a cage, box, prison and they didn’t use their key to move. Once you move the choices become visible, if you don’t move it’s hard to find the choices. People can’t bring it to you, you must do your exploration, do your preparation, do your engagement. To do this there are many tools that you may need: communication skills, vocational skills, how to acquire these skills are all on the website or please ask us.

Careerdevelopmentplan.net has an aim, which is my passion that many more people will experience the joy that I’ve lived with for over 20 years. I’ve shares this with many people in my companies, in my coaching and in my pro bono work at universities, communities and schools. A lot of it is on the website and we will keep on telling the stories. I hope you will join us to move from who am I? To this is what I want to become, this is me, this is what I’m adding, this is my purpose that is dynamically aligned and I’m continuously moving resources from external to internal.

People who’ve done this with us typically grew their salaries with a minimum of 30% in 18 months. Some of our top people, earning towards 200 000 plus dollars, still keep on increasing their salaries by more than 30%. They are secure and safe in their jobs because people love a man with a plan. Even during this recession our top people still got towards 30% increases when most people in the company didn’t. The key model is you have to understand the value you add, how you add it, why you add it and to show your passion and enthusiasm. This can only be sustained if you are clear about who you are and where you are going.

I hope we have given you an introduction, how to find or move to the job you love, going to work for fun every day and earning lots more money. That is the invitation, I hope you join us on this journey and please use the website freely and ask questions freely. We would appreciate it. Thank you very much.

How to Generate Career Change Ideas

by Unre Visagie

career change ideas

Are you tired of your current career direction?

Struggling to create a list of career change ideas?

Follow master career coach, Unre Visagie as he teaches a simple process to identify career change ideas that will fit your unique situation. Career change can be a scary thing, but if you approach your career change using a simple, safe and secure system, it all just falls into place. Check out the video below to start generating some ideas for your next career!

Careerdevelopmentplan.net offers the foolproof Career Maker program. As part of this we offer a process for career change ideas to stimulate you to organize your career change ideas into segmented elements. It works extremely well when you concentrate on a specific area at a time. The idea is to move from ‘I have a job and earn money’ to where you live in a great space with everything you want and money. Only one part of us consists of work. We are also social, spiritual, and physical; we are also friends and parents. We are many things. Only a small part is work. Let’s keep that in the back of our minds.

We would like to show you how these ideas move you from your current situation to the work of your choice, the job of your choice, the company of your choice and the industry of your choice. Many people argue with me that you can’t choose them all at the same time. That’s correct. You start with choosing your work and you have a clear career aim. In order to design your clear career aim it’s a good thing to start with as many change ideas as you can. You first go wider, you explore, and then you use the explored information when you are ready to engage.

There are always three steps in each element: you explore, you prepare and you engage. Look at your past experiences, the work you’ve enjoyed doing, what you have enjoyed at school and what you have enjoyed anywhere. Look at your past and look at what may be, what you think will give you joy. I will discuss all of them at the same time but first make notes on explore. Let’s look at specific transferrable skills. People find it hard to look objectively at all their past activities, the projects they were involved with, and the teams they were involved in. The idea is to focus on specific elements related to transferrable skills. The same with aptitudes, you can see from your past involvements where your aptitudes are. You can also get feedback from the people you were involved with. We will give the specific model to ask feedback.

There are models; some published, some not yet, on the web to assist you will these tasks. When you look back at your past activities your interests become clear. Many have to look at both their past and their desired future at the same time. Know what you believe and what you value. It’s very important to know that there are no right and wrong beliefs and values, there are just beliefs and values. If you choose an area of work, job, company and industry, that align closer with what you believe and what you value, it becomes a lot easier to thrive in that environment. If your values and beliefs differ a little from your chosen environment it becomes tough. So what do you believe? It’s good to ask why you believe it, but much later in the program we’ll get back to why.

Our beliefs and what we value were often not freely chosen, they are a product of past experiences, family, community, work, etc. All of those formed what we believe and what we value and why. We encourage you to go plus plus so you expand. It’s very important to keep your roots and grow your roots and expand from there.

Lastly, one of the most valuable things is who we relate to and the relationships we have formed, who and why. These relationships were often formed out of past activities and not freely chosen. You will see that freely chosen is a very important concept that keeps recurring. What’s more, there’s a process to go about choosing freely what suits you, why you relate to people, what you add to them, how you add to them and how you build relationships.

It’s a very clear process learnt at Hewlett-Packard way back, applied in all our multi-million dollar companies that we were privileged to build. All of this comes from the people in those companies who managed them to maximum productivity. Thereafter we did a lot of pro bono work at universities, schools and communities, under social ventures. We also did a lot of professional coaching at companies and with people, to grow their careers and grow the people; this is how you grow a company.

Relationships are critically important. Very few people realize that the people they relate to relates to many more. And those relate to many more and this never stops, until we are six levels away, fifty to the power six. We assume everyone knows fifty people that we don’t, then fifty to the power six are more of less all of the people on earth. So six levels away you can reach anybody on earth. It is simply a process or a model that explain how to achieve this.

Who and why? If you look at it segmented in this way you will arrive at a very long list of where you are and what your assets are. Just like a company has assets, a person has assets. Going forward, you take this initial process and engage with the people around you. This could be at home, with friends, at work, anywhere where you know people. If you check these things with them you will find that your list grows very quickly. You understand your assets much better. We haven’t met anybody who is not pleasantly surprised when we do this segmented process and they check it with the people around them. They also prepare the message and we are very excited about the power of stories.

Take this prepared message and engage the people you’ve identified, people who do similar work, people who do similar jobs, people in the companies you have targeted and people in the industry you’ve targeted. All of a sudden these relationships explode and you will get more career ideas. Recently, Ken, somebody we are coaching, couldn’t believe how many people he knows and when he was prepared, when he approached them, he got so many career opportunities, and even job offers that could double his $100 000 plus salary. It is an amazing process; nobody goes through this without getting new job offers, university students as well. We even had younger people that got sponsorships once they’ve done this process.

The key thing to remember is to keep your career, your work and your job aligned. If your career area grows, your work area grows, your job area grows, the overlap with the company, the industry and value-add grows. You want to move up the pyramid of production, from where you were a person at entry level, you grow into the teams and you keep on growing. You have to accelerate and arrive at a strategic level.

The process applies whether you have an expert career or whether you are on a management path. The expert path is somebody that grows in expertise and is very valuable to everybody in a company; we have a very specific process to manage that path. The management path differs a little in content. If you arrive here and you are clear with your message, it’s like a beacon that shines for you. You have access to a whole bunch of new opportunities and your store is growing in this process.

If you look at career change ideas, you can change your career, change the work that you do, change the job that you want or move your job in the company, or to another company. Even consider another industry that might excite you more and grow faster. Each one of the segments generates new ideas, your experiences, your transferrable skills, your aptitudes and your interests. It’s simply a process to generate ideas. I would like to add actual ideas to stimulate your thinking. Remember another person’s ideas can never be yours; it’s only yours that are relevant. I hope it helps you to engage in this process to generate career change ideas, to apply them and to engage to create huge opportunity, grow your relationships and grow your asset store. If you have any difficulties with this please ask us below. If you have comments on this, please engage us.

How to Change Careers Safely & Securely

by Unre Visagie

How to Change Careers

How can you change careers safely and securely?

Let master career change coach, Unre Visagie, show you how to approach your career change for maximum gain. People that follow the Career Maker process typically earn the same and sometimes even more after their career change. This happens because they clearly communicate the skills, resources and attititude they bring to their new job, career and company.

Watch this expert video from Master Coach, Unre Visagie below:

We are talking today about careerdevelopmentplan.net and its product: Career Maker System. This is a safe, secure, proven and now foolproof system on how to change careers. Change careers safely, securely, calmly and with a plan. The issue is the plan can only come from you. Or shall I say the content of the plan must come from you.

We have found over the years that the thing that stops most people is fear, fears are from perceptions, they are not real, they are just perceived. It’s really important to know that these fears are never real. FEAR simply stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear generates perceptions of risk, huge risks, and the risks are perceived since the fears are perceived. One of the many fears is fear of the unknown and fear of failure.

Fear of failure, where FAIL is a First Attempt In Learning. During everything we’ve learnt in life, from walking, talking, bicycle riding to driving a car, we have failed, and we have learnt from this failure. The Americans in California call it very nicely failing forward. With bicycle riding you even lost some skin. What happens to people is that they feel safe in some job or career, and they perceive that change is going to mean losing that safety, instead of the view that change creates new safety. You can see it as a box that you’ve got to escape, or a prison, and all you need is the key because the key to success can only work from your hand opening the door from inside. It can never be opened from the outside.

The other way to look at this whole safe career change is to realize there’s a lot you can see up here that you cannot really touch. It’s the glass plate principle, you feel you can touch it but you bump. What you bump against is that glass plate or the box or the prison that consist of these perceptions and fears which are not real. When you look at career change, midlife career change, change at 40, it is an issue of the work you do, the job within which you do the work, the company within which you have the job, and a company is always part of an industry. If you can get this aligned to suit you, life must be very close to perfect.

We like to break into a second area where your work aligns with your job and then with your long-term career aims, and if that aim is clear it’s like a beacon you put out there. You can publish it on linkedin, you can tell your friends, you can send letters, and all the people you know who know people can send it, because you are clear. That brings us to the challenges of career change in this model that I have briefly touched on.

The first challenge is to reach this clarity, and that is why part of the process is to search for information, prepare the information, and choose where you want to be engaged: job, company, industry. Make sure it lines up with your long-term career, so that you continuously aim for your career beacon. All of us can do that.

We have achieved this with thousands; thousands in our companies, because we realized that when people have this alignment and they have sufficient new challenges their productivity jumps. We also realized that if we can get people productive quickly it is very beneficial for the company. It was very expensive to hire new people; we had to get them productive quickly. This is where these processes were born.

The processes have been honed during the last 12 years in coaching at a high end but we have engaged in a lot of pro bono work at schools, universities and communities as well. I must admit the communities were the toughest, that is where the processes really got simplified, and became foolproof. Clarity is critical. That clarity must be prepared and communicated and the alignment must be kept. Through communication you clearly engage the company and industry, you engage the teams you work with, and you communicate and engage with the people around you.

A young lady, Laura, came to me and said: “My husband says if I keep on working in this company I’ll be stupid, I must leave immediately.” I sat down with her and we went through this process, we looked at the plusses in the company and we look at the minuses in the company, we made a balance sheet. She went home and told this new story to her husband. As it turns out, she was mostly focussed on the issues and problems that she had, and as we addressed a lot of the problems, it helped clear the minuses. Afterwards they said that if you leave this job you’ll be a fool.

It is a change in perception, using the information, preparing the information, communicating the information. You will hear those three steps in many different models and guises, but it’s always just the three steps. Get hold of new information and facts, organize the information, and communicate what you’ve organized.

It’s always just three steps to maintain alignment, provided you know what you really want, what makes your eyes light up, what makes you happy to go to work so you never feel like you work a day in your life. I sometimes almost feel a bit guilty to acknowledge that for nearly 25 years I’ve been working in that space where I never felt for a moment that I am working. 20% to 30% goes into work I would like to delegate. I try to delegate since I believe if I don’t delegate I steal somebody else’s work, but you can’t always delegate so a percentage will always be tough.

You can view this alignment and clarity as overcoming the challenges which makes your fears disappear. It’s not as if you address them, by getting clarity and information the fears simply go away.

The following is an equivalent model that you can use. The purpose of your career, your career aim, your career beacon during the short term is to choose the work you do, in the job you do, for the company and the industry you want to do it in. This should align with your long-term personal wishes for earnings, career, how much you work, where you work etc. That means that strategically you keep your long-term career aim, it’s your long-term career vision and mission, almost like a company vision and mission. In the short-term your objectives and your tasks always align with your strategic plan.

That plan, just like in any company, you must be able to communicate succinctly: why and what about your career, why and what about your job, why and what about your industry and why and what about your choice. All of this is about you; you are the centre of this always. However, if you put yourself first you come last.

What is important is the service you’re going to deliver to the team around you, your company and your industry, and back home. From that service you will get your returns. Always look at what you can contribute, how you can grow what you contribute. Look at your store of goodies that you can use to be productive, that store will grow very fast. You can choose where you apply your store, who buys in your store what you offer.

We hope we’ve made it clear that a career change at any time in your life can be a safe and secure process and your fears could disappear, provided you realize you’ve got to be aligned, you address the challenges, you communicate with the people around you, your purpose of career, your career beacon and your career aim is clear. You can have a long-term plan to keep you aligned with your work, job, company and industry. I hope I will see you again down the line in our Career Maker System which is foolproof.

The Top Midlife Career Change Reasons

by Unre Visagie

Midlife Career Change Reasons

The Top Career Change Triggers

In our coaching we have found that people want to make a midlife career change for very specific reasons. We have made a short list of these initial midlife career change triggers. To help you get started with a successful, safe and secure career change, please view the video below. In the video master midlife career change coach, Unre Visagie takes you through an introduction of the top reasons.

In careerdevelopmentplan.net we offer the foolproof Career Maker System, which helps people during their midlife career change. I have been there myself and so have many others around me. It takes you from the perceived box on limitations right through to a successful place where we typically see a 20 – 30% increase and we see big moves towards doing work people enjoy with confidence. We would like to see this for everybody.

I have the privilege of having lived there for almost 25 years now. Let us take a brief look at what drive these career changes. We have created a list and we ask you to please consider each item on the list below and start on the road to your successful midlife career change. Should you not find your reason for your midlife career change on this list, which is possible, please help us to help you and others by posting a comment about it and we would love to address the reason with a specific answer as soon as practical or possible. We hope that your change process could start with understanding and defining these reasons, what we call triggers that drive the need for a midlife career change. Once we have found these triggers, you can identify and design a solution that best fits your unique situation.

We have been successfully coaching people through midlife career changes for the past 30 years. In our multi-million dollar companies we were privileged to build, then through professional coaching, also pro bono work at universities, schools and in communities. The process is now really foolproof. In Career Maker Systems we see it as a bridge for people to move from triggers of discomfort and perceptions or interpretations, like being behind a glass plate. They then identify and take the right actions and they never stop moving again. We have people that we have coached for over 30 years, and it never stops.

The solution will be your identified choice of the best work, job, company and industry, to build your ideal, enjoyable career where you never have to feel that you have to work very hard a day in your life, yet you add great value with great income. That’s the goal. We have found three types, three main categories of changes:

  1. The ones that are so urgent they burn
  2. The ones that are just getting warm: “I want to change.”
  3. The ones we can see that will get warm in the future, we know change will be good.

Let us start with urgent change. This typically comes from companies that downsize and industries that change; the key thing is the job may disappear very soon. “I better make a plan before it gets too urgent.” The other way of thinking is:” I had enough of this job.”, “My job sucks.” That’s what we often think. I often found that it isn’t the job so much that sucks; it is the work that sucks. I had situations of people coming to me at work, in my companies, that say: “My husband says that if I don’t change this job soon, he is going to kick me out of here.” We went through the detail, they go back home, they tell a different story, the next day they come back and say: “The husband says I will be a fool if I leave this job.” It is merely a change in thinking.

It is often the work or the way we look at the work that sucks, but something sucks, it has to be changed. Let us look at one of the most urgent needs in our 40’s: I really must earn more money right now. It typically comes from the fact that many issues drive that change. However, what we found more often than not, people are responsible for a whole bunch of upcoming people, they are responsible for people seeing their life out, and even somewhat responsible for people in their current generation who’s not doing so well. The responsibilities at 40 and after 40 could be quite daunting. If you simply want to change because you’re not paid enough, it is often a very simple communication problem, and I like that one because it’s the quickest to address.

Another reason: people frustrate me. This can be for many reasons. Often we find that looking at things a bit differently solves this problem, but often it has gone so far that changing company, or at least changing the vision in a company is practical.

People stay in the same circumstances; mostly they just realize they are not happy, the travel bugs them, the workplace bugs them, the industry bugs them, and there are so many possibilities. They just feel they carry a very heavy weight. To get rid of this weight can be done in a number of ways. A change of company may be necessary, but often it is just a change in perception and looking at things differently.

Let us look at people who are really happy in their job, career and industry, they just need more challenges. This is also a very straightforward process, typically achieved in a few months, that usually leads to a 20 – 30% salary increase within 18 months. Making the change and communicating properly with a proper plan.

There is also the natural change; it’s just a restless feeling, I can do better, I can do more. The other one is that the job has become too easy, it’s repetitive, and repetitive is never good for us. We always say repetitive is like a groove, there’s an old adage that says the difference between a groove and a grave is just the depth. It’s like you are not alive anymore and you need to change that, you need to get out of the groove. It is simply a process that follows the same steps as the others.

In each of these cases the solution consists normally of three broad steps. We apply each of them for change, growth, issues etc. It’s to one way or another identify the root causes, prepare a lot of information and facts, think of possible alternative solutions, communicate that with the right people, and you have a fantastic solution. We find that when a man arrives with this clear insight and a clear plan, he is never refused.

Six years ago at North-West University in South Africa they couldn’t find practical work in the industry for students. Today 700 students find their own practical work simply because they know where they are going, they know why they want it, they can say why and what about a company, why and what about an industry and they talk to the right people. What makes it so exciting, about a third of them get jobs at companies that didn’t even have a position, but when they meet this enthusiastic, sorted-out person they create a job for him.

In summary, I would like to say that a career change can be an exciting experience. The Career Maker System makes it so clear and so easy. It’s not always quick, but it’s always clear and always easy. We call it a secure and safe way towards your ideal work, job, career, company and industry. I really hope you will make your choice and I hope that you will identify one of the items on the list below or please communicate with us, challenge us to see whether we can answer you. I hope one of the videos on the list below will encourage you to stay in the process, and complete it.

How to Make a Career Change at 40

by Unre Visagie

Career Change at 40

Is career change at 40 possible?

Let master career coach, Unre Visagie, guide you through the process of getting started with a career change. If you apply these steps, you will create an effective and peaceful start to your midlife career change.

Watch the video below to get started with your career change at 40…

Career Change at 40

We are looking at the subject of career management and career change at the age of 40. I have gone through that myself and looking back at my life I would never have started all those businesses, I would have managed my career towards wealth, fun and profit, if only I knew how at the time. Let us look at typically what defines the age of 40.

If I remember all the people and myself in our companies it is an age of big responsibilities; where we are busy helping the new generation, being responsible for the current generation and its difficulties and we are helping the old generation on its way out. It is something we want to do. It is also the time I am forced to look at the rest of my life, we have found that it always happens around age 40, plus or minus a few years.

We are mid-career when we are in our forties and we have to look at what we are going to do for the rest of our working life. We are often in a trap where I have become my job title and my job title defines me. Whereas I am actually many things: I am a friend, a parent and so many other things. Work is just one of the things I do; it does not define me.

What I am, what I think, what I feel and what is within me define me and work as a small part of me. What I would’ve liked to see when I look back, I would’ve like to have seen that my work was more aligned, with nice challenges, while having fun, earning more money and building wealth. I would have liked to see that I have grown in myself, in what I do, with whom I do it, where I do it, and that I had more choices about it. Choices really are the spice of life.

Let us look at a quick process to define and start your career change at 40.

  • What I would have liked to do differently for all the people in the companies I built over the past 30 years.
  • What have I done in coaching since then have been very successful.
  • Typically, the people that follow this process grow their salaries by 20 or 30% over 18 months.
  • They look at work differently, they approach challenges differently and always respond in any situation to grow their options and increase their choices.

You always have a very big in internal “store” consisting of:

  • Your natural talents,
  • Your work and personal skills
  • Your work and personal relationships

You have built this big store using external resources and internalized it over time. To increase our the process all we have to do is identify what we enjoy doing, what the current situation is, what we feel and what we perceive. We can turn those into prepared action with the aim to engage, it only takes a little bit of effort. We talk to friends, do a bit of research, think about it a bit and then talk to people around us, remembering it is all externally available. All you have to do is get it and make it internal. The actual process consists of:

  1. Identify
  2. Prepare research
  3. Engage, communicate with the world

Where I personally coach people through the Career Maker process, I regularly work with people who never realized that they had choices. I recently had somebody who has so many choices and never realized that he had all these choices. All the choices threatened him, because he saw them as difficult choices to make. When we turned it around and aligned the choices with what he wanted, the choices quickly reduced to two or three. These we investigated and he engaged. He is on his way to double his salary from $150 000 per year to probably $300 000 per year by just looking at things differently, he went external to trusted advisors, and he internalized the advice they gave him. He is now comfortable that the road forward is clear, he knows what to do next.

Outcomes of the Career Maker process

The outcome is that you are organized, you take action and you ensure your growth. Everybody loves a man with a plan. Everybody loves a man who is positive, clear, committed, who finds joy and things to do and contributes. For whom there is always a solution, but at the same time, he clearly knows what work to say no to.

Change is so fast today that you may have to choose again in five years. When you have applied this process a few times, change becomes a simple and fun matter. If you look at your career, the company you choose, the industry you choose, yes you can choose them all, that is for sure. It is just a process of identify, prepare and engage. Go external, bring it internal, and at 40 you typically have most, if not all, of these skills and access to these resources.

The Career Maker Process in Short

When considering a career change at 40, you do not want to jump ship. You want to progressively change ships. Most people at 40 have big responsibilities. You need to view your career change as a process, rather than a moment’s choice.

You will use your current work base to gently shift careers. You do more and more of the work you want to do, and less of the work you do not like doing. I found in my coaching that many people can make small changes in their current careers which leads to them becoming very happy right where they are! They never had to change careers, just recognize the opportunities they already had in their current jobs differently.

If it turns out that someone really must make a career change at 40, they have no obvious opportunities in their current jobs, I coach them to use their current job platform and reach out to external sources of knowledge and opportunity. They do this while they stay at their current job and steadily build connections to the right people and places.

In both cases we need to align the work you want do with the job you want to do in the company you do it, even if you remain with your current company. There are some very simple, easy processes to delegate what you do not like. Well-executed delegation frees your time so that you can focus on the work you want to do. View delegation from the perspective of “Others must grow, do not steal other people’s work”. While you delegate the work you do not want to do, volunteer for the work you want to do. Also, get further expertise outside of the company, in specific places, investing in yourself, or just participating for the benefit of those you want to learn from; grow the skills that let you move the job progressively to what you really want and what aligns with you.

When you are clear on your career, company, industry, work and job in the company, you are on your way to building a long-term career, remembering a job is just something you do on your career road. If you look at a career aim once you are clear about industry, company and yourself, it is so simple to make your career aim visible. Use online tools like LinkedIn to make your career aims visible. You will find that jobs come to you to fit your career aim. The real change happens when in a few months you announce your career aim, your support structure: your family and friends are with you and you are prepared for a career change.  You have done your thing, you have engaged, and you are ready with the resources, to move in the direction of your career aim.

Remember that career aim is something that keeps on moving, because our environment keeps on changing. However, at any one time, you must have a clear career aim. You are going to adapt it to embrace change, love change; change is so exciting for the prepared. Change is so threatening to people who are not prepared, remember that fear of change at 40 is simply facts that present themselves as if they are real and they are actually perceptions. Therefore, if you overcome fear, that nasty four-letter word, you overcome the risk you perceive and the risks are never real.

If you move progressively, you identify, prepare, and engage, you never take a big risk. It is an incremental process, you move towards your career aim. You should probably aim to align your career every two to three years; that is about the change cycle now. New opportunities arrive as the industries move, some disappear and some industries arrive. Humans always need a challenge, a change, remembering that change is as good as a holiday. I hope we have shown you that at 40 there are typically these things happening in peoples’ minds. They can align with what, who, where. They can do a quick start, moving from their basal store, they can organize, take action and grow, and they can align perfectly towards a long-term career aim.

More career change at 40 resources:

Delegation resources:

7 Habits of Highly Effective People

How to Write a Career Change Cover Letter That Work

by Unre Visagie

Career Change Cover Letter

Craft your career change cover letter

A carefully crafted cover letter gets your resume noticed. A carefully crafted resume gets you the interview. Having your story straight, with examples, in the interview lands you the job.

It does not matter how old you are or if you little industry related skills. It is more about what work experience you bring with you. Scroll down to watch a video of Master Career Coach, Unre Visagie explain how to craft your career change cover letter.

The career change cover letter is meant to get you the job you’ve chosen at the company you’ve chosen, in the industry that you’ve chosen. We’ve found that if the cover letter is clear it demonstrates that the man has a plan and he is clear on the why and what about the industry, the company, the job and himself.

If this is clear then invariably people get hired and we even found that with this clarity people get jobs at companies where no jobs existed or was planned, because they see wow, this man is enthusiastic about my industry, my company, his job and himself.  I have to have such a person in my company, I cannot let him pass. I know I don’t have a job right now, but I’m going to make one for him. This happens with about a hundred students a year under Prof. Kroon at the North-West University where we’ve been developing and running this program for seven years.

This happened after we used the process to build our companies. We’ve used it for the last ten years in our pro bono community work where we’ve empowered people to get jobs starting from nothing. Today young people with very bad home conditions and education are fully qualified mining engineers. The process truly works. It also works for several people we coach at a $100000 plus level that gets 30% increases in the jobs they want towards building their career; it’s always aimed at the long-term career.

If you look at a cover letter it’s you choosing the job, the work you want to do, choosing the company you want to do it in or with, and the industry you want to operate in. When you look at a company you must be very comfortable with the company’s clients. You must be comfortable with the way they serve clients and the way they approach clients.

If you then look at your career change cover letter, it must have a maximum of three paragraphs; it cannot be more than three paragraphs. You must state that you have a plan, that you are excited; it must contain facts about the job, the company and the industry. Job, company and industry always stay together. The second thing that your cover letter must show is that you have a clear thread in your past decision making, to actually get you to this point. The cover letter must then state any TRUST. Trust is about four elements: reliability, acceptance, openness and congruence and openness. It must be clear in your cover letter. To get it clear, be ready with factual stories, remembering that we are still a story-telling society.

story telling 300x200 How to Write a Career Change Cover Letter That Work

The Power of Storytelling

I think we must add something about the power of good stories. A clear, good story has awesome power.

Here is a link to a video of Peter Guber: Peter Guber on The Power of Storytelling.

So what are the stories you require?

You require stories that show your manageability, stories that show your willingness to be involved, stories that show commitment, commitment to results, stories that show initiative. These are the things they interview for. They will ask you three sets of questions in the interview. They will ask open questions, for which you must have ready answers. They will ask you closed questions, for which you must have facts or one of these short stories.

Here is a link to Peter’s book “Tell to Win”:

Q: You must get ready for the interview in your cover letter?

A: Thank you, very importantly, I would advise that you have this clear because what I found is that this has a huge input in the words of the cover letter. The main reason for doing it at this time is to ensure that you are actually backing up your cover letter. This back-up gives you absolute confidence. The company may have a process of pre-screening: telephoning etc. If they call you and you are not ready, you’ve lost. We’ve worked through thousands of CV’s and interviews in our companies and if there is a lack of clarity it goes to the bin. The people who stated clearly in their cover letter why they wanted to work for our company in our industry they got an interview without exception.

Q: These stories, are they supposed to be long? How would they look in the cover letter? Are they paragraph stories?

A: No, the stories don’t get into your cover letter. The cover letter gives a strong indication that you have the stories. The words in your cover letter reflect your confidence, that’s why you must gain the confidence. That’s why you must get your stories ready. Written is better, but if you are like me writing is not always easy. Keep your stories ready.

If your stories are ready and you can tell me why the job, why the company, why the industry and why you, I’ve hardly ever seen anybody fail to even create a job where none existed. That is the power of a well-constructed cover letter. Getting somebody to craft you a clever letter which is not your words is a very dangerous thing. We can assist you, or many other coaches can assist you to help you find your words. On the website you will find further techniques to help you get your words.

Secondly, what I find people have great difficulty with is that most of us can’t talk about ourselves, we get totally stuck, so I find that you’ve got to have a soundboard, somebody you trust that is able and capable. In recent examples for instance, the best soundboard we found for a guy that’s earning $140000 was one of his clients. Why would a client help him? It’s a simple technique, to go and say thank you to the client, and to say wow, it’s really great what you are doing and I want to ask you a weird question today. What do you think I do differently, what do you think my next career should be.

What does that show to the client that you approach? That you recognize him, he’s a significant person and you really respect and accept him. When you approach people for advice and input, those three things are the most important. Significance, recognition, acceptance and respect are the most powerful approach to humans. Hardly anybody can say no to that. When we get the younger or older people that we coach to get into companies and jobs that didn’t even exist, this is one of the things we prepare them with. To approach with the right approach, only you can help me because you are so great. That comes back to gratefulness. When you approach the person you’ve got to be extremely clear on what you want.

Q: Why would I approach a client and ask them how am I different? How does that relate back to the cover letter?

A: It is for you to understand and communicate your possible contribution, your unique approach, why you are a valuable addition. It’s very hard to find this by yourself. It’s a bit like a brain surgeon doing brain surgery on himself; not a good idea. And very often, constructing your own stuff is like doing brain surgery on yourself.

Q: And specifically in a career change situation? You’ve got to now indicate what your skills are, because you bring a skill set, it’s not like your bringing industry knowledge as such, because you’re making a career change. But you bring who you are to the company.

A: Then you find an advisor in that industry, the one that you want to change to, that is how you engage in the industry. Be clear about the how and what. The how and what process must be applied to every phase. Your cover letter must show why you are excited. How are you going to show it if you don’t engage people in the industry, read the magazines, go to some trade shows? You may even meet your next employer at a trade show.

Q: And the reason you want to spend this amount of time on your cover letter is that your cover letter gets your CV into the interview bundle?

A: Yes, you’ve got to get your CV out of a huge pile into a shortlist, survive the shortlist and then get into an interview.

You have to spend time on this. Otherwise you will appear like everyone else. You are going to keep on begging and pleading, and no-one will understand you. They want to help you, but you don’t allow them to. That is why we say the door to success has a handle on the inside. This process of having clarity on the how and what of each element we call the golden key to success. It’s your golden key. To craft the key, to make the key is effort, but it’s the rest of your life. And today is the first day of the rest of your life. Can you put too much effort into this? I don’t think so.

We find that people with this clarity are very successful in our second process, where once you have done this, we can assist you to get into companies that don’t even advertise for a job. If you want to really join accompany and you are clear on this, there’s a process whereby you hook yourself in. You go with respect, you go with knowledge, you go with enthusiasm you are irresistible, and you have it in you. I haven’t met a person that doesn’t have it in him.

Extra resources:

The elements of trust

The issue resolution model

The power of storytelling (Peter Guber and Tony Robbins)

I Hate My Job! and what to do about it…

by Unre Visagie

hate my job

Do you currently hate your job?

Are you seriously considering a job change in the very near future?

Let career coach, Unre Visagie show you how to manage your current situation to your greatest benefit!

Scroll down for the video.

We are here today to look at careerdevelopmentplan.net, the Career Maker system that assists people to move from perceived career boxes all the way to great careers as we will see in the next ten minutes. We’re specifically here today to look at your career direction and possible job change; you’ve had enough of the job and the way it works at the moment, we have agreed that something must change, and soon.

Typically what creates this perception of a career box are all kinds of fears from which follow many perceived risks. There are the fears of failure and the fears of change looming large for most!. If we just look at fear itself, it is simply false evidence appearing real, it’s rarely got substance to it, and even if it’s got substance, it can be managed. These perceived fears are the well spring of perceived risks and therefore risks are not real. Of course there are the fears of failure. In this situation we are just going to look at failure as a first attempt in learning. You have learnt this way all your life, from walking and talking to everything you can do today, it all went through a process of trial and error until you succeeded. It’s like learning to ride a bicycle; all we’re doing is holding the bicycle a little bit during this process of change. Safe bicycle riding; you shouldn’t lose any skin.

There are three situations we would like to look at:

  1. People can sometimes just change their job in the company, or even just change the way they approach the job.
  2. Some of you may be in a situation where they need to change the job and the company.
  3. Sometimes we find, and some of you may have today, where you want to change the job, the company and the industry you are currently working in.

Now where do we change from and what are we changing to?

We begin with the store each one of us here has; a store of assets. We can typically look at those assets as experience, expertise, industries, aptitudes and relationships. Those are things you’ve accumulated and we find that very few people can articulate these experiences into identifying which job it will fit, which company it will fit, which industry it will fit. Therefore we start by looking at the external world, where all the resources are available that you could possibly imagine. There must just be a process for you where you can take these resources and internalize it, we will show you here. To achieve this process view it like a staircase. Each of you is going to make your own staircase. You’re going to then climb you own staircase, hence the perceptions of big risks.

That is what we have learned from the people in our companies, that we have coached since to professional master coach; that this scary process, once it becomes known, all fear, all risks disappear. Career Maker system makes it clear and real and straightforward. Let’s get started by exploring your exact needs today. We typically like everybody to go through a review, even if you know you want to change your job. You may be any of the three situations. It’s still very good at this time to just do a proper exploration, re-check each element, and by checking it you grow anyway.

The second step is to use this information you’ve accumulated and state clearly why and what you choose each item of information. You typically discuss it with some people around you. It’s all part of your preparation. Then you go to respected people; I know each of you have respected people that you admire. With a clear plan you’ll be able to approach them. They are then the people you want to engage to take you on your next level, job, career direction, the company and the industry. Also the work you choose on a daily basis. This process grows your store.

You already grow in your various assets, you become more visible, and more people know that you are ready for this new thing. By the end of it you align your job with the industry and the company clearly. You can tell anybody that asks very quickly: “I like this company because…” “I like this industry because…”  “I like this job because…” You’ve got to be very clear. It’s just like selling a product; in this case, you are the product. You’ve got to be clear, or they can’t help you. If you are clear everybody wants to help you.

Secondly you do the same process in your current job, you are clear about the work you like and this process is to align your work, do less of some, and do more of others. You will see the process in the next inbox. You aligned that within your job, so you moved your job a bit. Most jobs today are portfolio jobs, I realize all of you do things outside your job definition and some things in the job definition are done by others. That is how the concept of the portfolio job came about, that everybody talks about today. With this alignment and clarity of your process, you now have a clear career aim, you can even call it a career beacon, and you can put the beacon anywhere, and you can see it and other people can see it and you can aim directly for it. You end up in charge of your future.

Never again will you be worried that you can lose your job. Losing your job is almost an exciting thing. You will never be scared again that you will not be paid for what you do, because you will learn how to ask for what is due to you. It’s all part of the process in the next inbox.

You end up with clear insight, knowledge and confidence. The confidence comes from being able to say who am I, what is the job, what is the industry, what is the company, where’s my career going, what tasks do I like doing. This clarity you can call a man with a plan. A man with a plan we found is welcome everywhere. Prof. Kroon couldn’t get holiday jobs for his students six years ago. Today 700 of his students get holiday jobs using the process. All Prof. Kroon does is; he helps the students become clear about the company, the industry, the job, which they approach with clarity, and all of them get their own internship or holiday job, which is part of the curriculum; they must gain experience.

You can’t fail to get the job you want and hopefully you will never in your life use the words again: “I had enough of my job.” You will know how to move from that box, because we see it as a box, all the way through to this great process. We find that people walking the road with us typically get 30 – 40% increases in the next 18 months to 2 years. Several of our people in the program during the last few years got between 20 and 30%, even recently when the company gave no increases, they laid some people off; the people who knew where they were going still got their 30% increase. It’s quite amazing.

It is now as near full-proof as we can get it. Let’s look at where we go from here. Moving from the career box to the great space, with your great asset list, never again using the words: “My job sucks.” Because you will be in charge, you will choose the job you like, how can such a job suck? Change then becomes the excitement it should be with the Career Maker System, the clarity of steps, the ease of execution, the assistance, makes it very straightforward. The next step towards your midlife career change to a job that doesn’t suck will be in your inbox tomorrow. I hope you watch out for it and you are with us forward.

Midlife Career Change Without the Stress

by Unre Visagie

Midlife Career Change

We have coached many people from all walks of life through midlife career changes in different companies and in our personal career coaching practice. Eventually we came to a standard template that works for most people thinking of changing careers.

The key issue we found is that many people think they are their jobs. When asked them who they are and most people answered I am a “Doctor”, I am an “IT Professional”, or “I am a Teacher” they in some way link their person to their job or their last qualification.

The specific work you feel you can do the best or want to do the best defines who you are. For example, a project manager answered I am an accountant 20 years ago.

During a midlife career change, it is critical that you know what kind of work you want to do more of and what kind of work you want to do less of.

Exploring what you want to do less of and more of in your new career

If you are clear on exactly what you want, it becomes easy to communicate your “Career Change Message” to the right place and the right people. With a clear message, you can make smooth transition in a midlife career change. You have years of work experience and abilities and these skills are worth much to companies. Even though your current work experience might not overlap 100% with your new direction, your skills and workplace experience is still worth gold.

If you are planning a midlife career change, it is very important to get the exact job you want in the precise industry of your choice and in the geographical area, you want to work. The chances that you will make a major career change again later in your life are small, which makes the career change choices you make now incredibly important.

Remember you are the only steward of your work life, what you do and what you earn. No one else really cares.

Let us begin to get clarity on your mid life career change

First, let me ask you a very important question.

Do you believe you have a choice? It is extremely important you absolutely believe you have choices, be confident in yourself and your life experience. To make a midlife career change is a major move; you need to get your mind in the right place. Your confidence will shine though in everything you do from here on forward.

We truly live in the best time ever in access to knowledge, communication and travel resources.

Now let us follow a process to gain that critical clarity in your communication on the industry and the work you want. Clarity is vital in middle-life career changes.

  1. Which industry do you enjoy working in? Identify the products, services, development, people and the contribution you will make. Be sufficiently clear and be ready to adapt your message with input from others in friends, family and colleagues. Once you are clear on where you want to go, you must clearly communicate how the company, division, team, suppliers and clients you want to join and serve will benefit.
  2. Communicate your message to people you know and ask them to send it to people they know. Identify and engage key people in the company, team of division you want to join. Be clear how the company, division, suppliers and clients will benefit.
  3. Be visible and get involved, engage in the places and work you want to do.

About career change and resumes

Too many people hope their resumes will find work for them. Your resume is important, but it is much more important to be clear on what you want. Before you start writing your resume, get your story straight, know what kind of work you want and be 100% sure in which industry you want to work.

Notes for midlife career changers:

  • Be flexible on starting salary and expectations of compensation for work done.
  • Communicate the work you did before, during and after the tasks above.

Useful tools for career changes:

  • Do a sweep of what you know and who you know.
  • Do a sweep of what is in your diary that does not belong there and say no to the things that does not move you forward.
  • Search for what should be in your diary and schedule it.