CAREER TRANSFORMATION

Career Transformation programs are designed to help you reimagine your career and find work that is both meaningful and financially rewarding. These start with a basic premise—you don’t need to trade success for meaning, nor profit for purpose. We’ll show you how to find the “AND” in your career— so you’re experiencing both meaning AND money; success AND purpose.

Career transformation consist of 8 stages – Disengagement – Disidentification – Disorientation – Letting Go – Re-engagement – Discovery – Clarity - Integration

People seek to change careers for many different reasons. Your career goals or values may have changed; you may have discovered new interests that you would like to incorporate into your job, you may wish to make more money, or have more flexible hours, just to name a few.

Before you decide, it is important to take the time to evaluate your present situation, to explore career options, to decide if your career needs making over, and to choose a career that will be more satisfying for you.

Why People Change Careers

There are many different reasons why people want to change careers. Of course, it's a personal decision with many factors involved. Job list’s Midlife Career Crisis survey reports on the top five reasons people change careers:

Better Pay: 47%
Too Stressful: 39%
Better Work-Life Balance: 37%
Wanted a New Challenge: 25%
No Longer Passionate About Field: 23%

Outcome

The Benefits of a Career Change

The Job list survey reports that most people were happier after they made the change:

Happier: 77%
More satisfied: 75%
More fulfilled: 69%
Less stressed: 65%

In addition, the people who change careers were making more money. Survey respondents who changed careers for better pay earned an additional $10,800 annually compared to their previous positions.

The 8 stages of success career transformation:

1. Disengagement

When we first leave a career or role that we’ve heavily identified with, the disengagement process involves disentangling ourselves from a structure that we previously worked very hard to be a part of. Whether you liked it or disliked your previous career, it’s jarring and deeply unsettling at first, to move away from the very thing that, for years, represented a semblance of order, sense, and structure. We’re full of conflicting emotions as we embark on this disengagement process, and an experience of loss and grieving often creeps in, as we realize that what was once is no more (and most likely never will be again).

2. Disidentification

As we disengage, we start to understand that the identity we formed being a part of this former structure also needs re-assessment and revision. The ways we defined ourselves previously, and how we achieved our self-esteem or evaluated “progress” and accomplishment, for example, no longer hold up without the surrounding structure in place to support it. We’re startled at the realization that our “self concept” -- the identity we strove so hard to construct in order to “win” or survive in the former structure – is in fact, not necessarily one we wish to perpetuate.

3. Disorientation

At this stage, we often feel disoriented and confused. We’ve detached from the former structure, but haven’t yet replaced it with something of meaning, something that fits. This period finds us befuddled and anxious, longing for clarity and movement but somehow knowing that rushing through this to attach prematurely to a new direction will not end well. During this period, we grasp the notion that we must allow the process to unfold, and let ourselves evolve and grow...to “become.” But this “becoming” feels like a limbo full of uncomfortable unknowing.

4. Letting Go

In this stage, we begin to realize that in order to free ourselves to move forward toward something more fulfilling and satisfying, we have to let go. We see more clearly how we co-created many of our former problems, and that we were an active contributor to the challenges we faced in our former situation. We realize that we have formed some habitual patterns, thinking, and behaviors that no longer serve us, and these will need to be released and revised if we want to grow to the fullest and to be our highest and best. We see, finally, that it wasn’t just the job or career that got in the way of our happiness, but in some core way, it was ourselves. We begin the work of “getting hip to our trip,” and letting go of what no longer works.

5. Re-engagement

Once we’ve had time to adjust to the loss of our former structure, and we own that we are co-creators of our own lives and begin to work on the aspects of us that contributed to our challenges, a light breaks through and there’s a dawn of re-engagement. We become more excited about working through change, and about the possibilities ahead. We start to understand that we are indeed capable of creating a more fulfilling, joyful and successful future, and career, than we ever thought possible. And we’re ready to do the real work of inner and outer change.

6. Discovery

During this process, we embark on an exploration of who we are at a deeper level. We delve into the question of what is truly possible. We explore what matters most, and what we want of ourselves to endure after we’re gone. We discover lost parts of ourselves, and bring to the surface vital dimensions of our personality and our persona that went underground to make the old structure work. This stage is about discovering ourselves again – finding what was lost, healing what was wounded, and remembering what we wish to honor, support and strengthen in ourselves going forward.

7. Clarity

Finally, clarity emerges. We glimpse at a new picture of what we can become, and feel more engaged and enlivened than ever before. We allow ourselves to connect to what we truly long to be and do. We’ve wiped away the cobwebs that clouded our view from the prior experience, and are ready to embrace a new identity that makes full use of our talents and experiences, but in a new way that yields more fruit, now that we know ourselves better, and have identified what we want in a clearer, more expansive way.

8. Integration

This stage is about bringing it all together -- our new insights, knowledge and experiences -- to create a new career reality for ourselves. We see clearly what we’re capable of, and what held us back before, and are ready to commit to building a more exciting and rewarding next chapter of life and work that reflects the best of what we’ve learned and experienced.

How long these stages take is fully up to the individual, but one thing is certain: Walking away from a previous career and reinventing yourself requires time, and a great deal of courage, strength, patience, self-love, and faith. But for most of us who have embarked on career transformation – it wasn’t a choice. We were called to do it, and once we started on the journey, we realized there was no turning back.

Interested to find out more on career transformation, please email info@bi-mgt.com