Category: career advice

How do you want to spend the rest of your life?

If you’re like me and most other people, you probably choose or fell into your first career when you were too young to know beans about your options or yourself.

For entertainment, here’s how my story went.

I graduated with a degree in Media Arts.

Quite.

I’m still in the dark today about what that really was.

To make myself marginally more appealing to employers, I did a three-month course at my local college of further education to learn how to use a computer and touch type.

I landed my first job as an admin assistant.

Three minutes later I was so bored with admin that I started volunteering to help with any work that distracted me from the tedium.

By pure chance, that additional work was communications related.

Four months later I wrote my own job description and got the company to make me their communications co-ordinator (what I lacked in experience I appear to have made up for in sheer front!)

After 18 months I applied for every media job in The Guardian, flooding the market with my CV until I landed a job in PR.

Side note: I had absolutely no idea what PR was.

Fast forward 16 years and I’d had a successful climb up the communications ladder to the heady heights of Vice President and Deputy MD Europe for a global digital marcoms agency.

I can hear the oooohs.

Now there was just one problem.

The career that I had worked relentlessly to build to that point was most definitely not the one I wanted to work at for the rest of my days.

The truth was that communications had chosen me, not I it.

There was no conscious selection based on my passion for the field or my most intrinsic personal drivers.

I’d had no idea at 21 what those things were.

Which meant that at 37 I was in a quandary.

I was craving something very different.

Something more meaningful, purposeful and fulfilling.

Something that allowed for a life with more space, time and peace.

But what? How was I going to choose the right path to pursue?

When I got over the ill-fated idea of using my CV to guide my choice, I faced a different problem.

The possibilities were endless!

Should I start my own business?

Should I work for a charity or non-profit?

Maybe I should try a company in an adjacent field?

What about going back to school to train for a career in something else?

Perhaps I should turn a hobby into a job?

After floundering for what felt like an eternity, jumping from one idea to the next but never feeling confident enough to settle on one definite thing, I hired a coach to help me deal with some separate personal issues.

And then it happened.

Unintentionally, the questions my coach asked me helped me narrow down what I really wanted from my second career and corresponding lifestyle.

They provided some thought-provoking guidelines that stopped me peering down the wrong avenues and helped me investigate the right ones.

So if you’re struggling to identify your own ideal career path from all the options available, write down your answers to these five questions and see what the combined result tells you.

1. What activity, type of work or support have you gravitated towards and undertaken in your professional or personal life, even when it wasn’t in your job description or expected of you?

2. Would you be happier living somewhere else?

3. When did you stop doing what you loved?

4. If you could write a book to help the world, that was guaranteed to be a best seller, what would the title be and what would it be about?

5. If it was guaranteed that you couldn’t fail, what would you do?

Like me, your answers might just direct your thinking and your ultimate second act

P.S. If you’d like some structured help coming to a clear conclusion on your second career, which takes into account your ideal life criteria, check out Work Wonderland.

It’s confession time. I made this mistake. (I know, imagine).

Ten years ago, I was hankering after a second career. While I’d built up years of knowledge, skills and experience in my field, I dreamed of a making a real change.

I’d spend hours visualising a lifestyle and career that afforded me more time, more freedom and more personal fulfilment.

I imagined living in the countryside or on the coast, working for myself and doing a creative job with meaning and purpose, whatever that might be.

As it became harder to reconcile my dream with my reality (I lived in the city, worked for a global organisation and did a job that didn’t scream purpose at me), I knew it was time to start planning my second act.

And so I did what pretty much everyone does.

As I tried to figure out my ideal second career and how I might make money from it, I started with my CV.

Sensible decision, right?

Wrong.

Bear with me here, I know this probably seems surprising.

While it might belie logic, this is why it was a bad idea.

My CV pigeonholed me as a “communications person”.

Those pages of copy documenting my skills and experience formed parameters that boxed me in.

They presented a tunnel vision of the options available to me, and at best helped me generate ideas that were only one or two steps removed from my current position.

It meant that I started looking at communications roles in different cities, which is where the majority of those jobs were based, and I also considered becoming a freelancer in the field.

Not only did these ideas leave me utterly cold (read freezing), they didn’t deliver on the most important criteria of all.

They didn’t cater for the lifestyle factors that had fuelled my increasing desire for a change in the first place.

One way or another, each idea lacked time, freedom, personal fulfilment or a combination of all three.

Which left me feeling demotivated and like a fulfilling change was impossible to achieve.

What I didn’t know then was that by trying to determine a new path through the lens of my résumé, I was unwittingly curtailing my options and actively courting compromise.

So here’s the eye-opener.

Starting with your CV doesn’t help you make a real change.

It doesn’t steer you to towards a better work/life balance or a genuine sense of purpose, which is what those in their 40s and 50s most often crave.

Instead, the most effective place to begin is with a deeper dive into not just what you’ve done, but who you are.

Taking the time for some intentional self-reflection can make all the difference.

What I’m talking about here is the kind of self-contemplation that feels like fun. Where you dig deep to uncover what truly drives, motivates and interests you, and explore your most feel-good talents.

This is the opportunity to make a change that ultimately delivers the life you dream of.

It should feel playful, exciting and inspiring, and most importantly of all, deeply personal to you.

So where to start?

Well, in my experience there are four foundational areas that combine to shape the right ideal career and life path.

Those areas are your personal values, strengths, passions and skills.

To help kick-start your own process of self-reflection, have a go at answering these questions. Take some time to really mull over your responses, to see what they tell you.

• What are your values? Which principles underpin the way you need to live and work in order to be happy?

• What are you passionate about? What activities or topics absorb you so that you lose time when you’re engaged in them?

• What are your strengths? What are you naturally talented at? What do people always tell you you’re good at?

• What are your skills? Which of your skills do you enjoy using the most?

I can promise you one thing. Your answers to these questions will provide a much better foundation for decision making than your CV.

They will also help direct your thinking without trapping you in a single line of focus based on your field experience.

So in the words of the wonderful Mary Oliver, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

P.S. If you’d like some structured help with your self-reflection, which leads you to a clear answer on your ideal second career, check out my Work Wonderland and IDENTIFY programmes.

It will lead you, in a fun way, to uncover the personal gems that will form the foundation for your next career chapter.