Managing your career change on top of a full-time work load and personal responsibilities

Week Two:  Make the Time

One of the biggest challenges my clients face is implementing their career transition strategy while managing a full-time work load and personal responsibilities.

Of course, this challenge can feel quite overwhelming.  Unfortunately, it prevents many women from even starting the process of launching a career transition - leaving them stuck in the wrong job and the wrong career.

Orchestrating a career change while working full-time and managing your home life is indeed very challenging.  The good news is that it is also very doable.

I help women hit this challenge head-on in my “Discover Your Authentic Career Fit” program.  We break the process down into simply organized and manageable action steps. 

This month, I cover four steps to help you cope during your career transition.  This week, we’ll focus on step number two:  Make the Time.

Make the Time

Implementing an effective career transition strategy takes work.  You need to allocate at least two hours each week to the process.  Ideally, you want to focus on it every day to build positive momentum.  This can mean as little as 15 minutes a day.  Remember: Consistent effort creates forward momentum.

I recommend you set your own personal “office hours” to work on your career transition.
Making time for consistent office hours may require you to take some things off your plate - at least temporarily.

For example, Jamie, a client of mine in Los Angeles, was having difficulty keeping her weekly job search office hours.  To examine what was going on, we talked through her typical week. 

Jamie is an avid salsa dancer.  She goes out dancing every Friday night.  This activity is a very important stress reliever for her and she was not willing to give it up, even temporarily.

So I asked her for a viable alternative.  She came up with the following plan:

“I will continue to go out dancing every Friday night.  But I’ll arrive at the club two hours earlier than usual and leave for home two hours earlier.  Therefore, I can wake up early on Saturday morning and focus on my job search.  I will also abstain from alcohol while I’m out so I’ll have more energy, focus and clarity to put into my job search activities on the weekend and into the week.”   
 
Key to Jamie’s acceptance of this plan was the knowledge that she only had to make these changes for a limited amount of time.  She would much rather give some things up temporarily in order to reach her overall career transition goal.  She knows that once she’s in a better job, her whole life will improve. 

To help you reach your current career objective, I invite you to ask yourself the following powerful question:

What activity can I temporarily take off my plate (or modify) so I can have the time and energy to achieve my goal?

Until next week…
Maret

This entry was posted by Maret McCoy on March 12th, 2007 under Career with keywords .

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