Episode 21 Are you having a Midlife Career Crisis?

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Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable,

the podcast for ambitious female

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leaders who want to create more impact,

income, and influence in their careers.

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feel connected to their passion

and purpose, but without

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selling out or burning out.

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I'm Sarah Archer, a leadership coach

and career strategist, helping women

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like you thrive in leadership roles

while staying true to your values.

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I'm the founder of CareerTree

Coaching and have over 15 years of

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coaching experience and significant HR

leadership experience to share with you.

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I know as a female leader it can

be hard to find time to focus

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on your career aspirations.

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The day job can be all consuming.

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Plus, no matter how senior you are,

there are always going to be times

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when you feel stuck, when you have

self doubt, or feel like an imposter.

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And that's where unstuck

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Each week I'll be sharing practical

strategies, insightful interviews and

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inspiring stories to help you boost

your confidence, lead with purpose

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and achieve sustainable success.

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If you're ready to stop playing

small and unlock the incredible

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potential you have within you and feel

unstoppable, you're in the right place.

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Let's get started.

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Welcome to episode 21.

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I'm so glad you're here.

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Today we are talking about are you

having a midlife career crisis?

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Now it doesn't have to be midlife.

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These things can happen

at any point in our careers.

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And they're often

triggered by life events.

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It could be a milestone birthday.

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It could be getting married, having

a baby, buying your first house.

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It could be losing somebody close

to you, or it could be something

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bigger like the global pandemic.

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That's certainly brought in sharp focus

how we want to spend our lives, how we

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want to spend our time, having, had the

opportunity to either work from home or to

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spend more time with family and friends.

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It makes you shift and think,

okay, is this how I want to

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be living my life right now?

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It's been a good opportunity to reflect.

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I work with a lot of clients who.

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Have these moments in their careers

where they start questioning is this it?

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Am I, fulfilling my potential?

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Am I happy?

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Does my career give me meaning?

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Is it fulfilling me?

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What am I doing with my life?

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I know that these things come up

often at key points for clients.

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. How to turn this crisis feeling

into a positive career opportunity.

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Because often when we're feeling

this sense of uncertainty in our

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career it can feel quite paralyzing.

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Those questions.

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what am I doing with my life?

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Is this right for me?

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Am I getting fulfillment?

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I want can, can be quite paralyzing.

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They can make us feel stuck

not knowing where to turn.

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So I'm going to give you a little

structure today to help you take

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those feelings and understand them

and be able to take some actions

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to move yourself forward and out

of that feeling of paralysis.

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The first thing to do would be to

actually acknowledge and to give yourself

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recognition that questioning where you

are is actually good, that it's helpful.

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Because we do need to take stock of

our careers at different points in our

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lives because otherwise we can, we can

stagnate, we can end up plateauing.

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or not making progress or developing

an operation the way that we want to.

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Rather than seeing it as a negative,

I'm feeling, these feelings and

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I don't know what to do about it.

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Actually seeing it as a positive but

then being able to drill down into

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that feeling to understand what is

going on for you is super important.

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I've got three questions

that can help you.

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Avoid overthinking and what I would

encourage you to do would be to write

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down your answers to the questions.

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Obviously not now, you'll need to reflect

on them a bit but writing it down is a

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positive way to manage your thoughts . It

gets out of your head and stops it just.

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Whizzing around all the time

and you end up ruminating on it.

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The first question would be to say,

where am I right now in my career?

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What's working and what's not working?

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Because sometimes when we've got

those feelings of, am I happy?

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It might be because we feel

nothing's working in our career.

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But actually, when we examine it,

we can start to realize that

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there's only one area of our career

that isn't really working for us.

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And maybe there's quite a significant

amount of our career that is really good.

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Or it can be actually nothing

seems to feel right for me.

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Doing that reflective piece around.

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What's working, what

isn't, is super useful.

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And then the second question would be,

okay, what are the three accomplishments

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that I'm most proud of in my career,

over say the last five years?

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Now you can go further back

than that if you can't think of

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anything in the last five years.

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But if you can't think of anything

in the last five years, then that's

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giving you information as well.

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And being able to focus on the positives

of things that you're most proud of can

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help you get some perspective around your

career again of actually, Oh yeah, okay.

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Yeah.

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Maybe I need to be able to do more of.

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That thing that I see as an

accomplishment, it was really

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satisfying and fulfilling.

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And maybe it's because I haven't had

the opportunity to do that anymore.

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It's why I'm now feeling

unfulfilled and also.

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Looking at those three accomplishments

can help you spot your key strengths,

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because you can notice the themes that

might be in those accomplishments.

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. And then the third thing would be to

do a little bit of thinking about

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where do I want my career to go?

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When I imagine myself in the future,

what do I see myself doing now?

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This doesn't have to be

a big visioning thing.

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It can just be a thinking about.

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What are the things that I

really want to be doing more

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of in my career in the future?

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And that could be linked to your

accomplishments, or it could be linked

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to the what's working in your career.

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Those three reflective questions can

give you more insight into what is

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happening at the moment that's creating

this dissatisfaction in your career

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that's making you question where you are.

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And then the next thing to think

about is to check in with your values.

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Our values are super important.

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There are the things that

motivate us and drive us.

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forward in both life and work.

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And you can think about them in a career

context as being a compass that helps you

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navigate career choices and decisions.

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Understanding what it is that

drives you is really important.

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And they can be evident in

the way that you do things.

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Maybe hard work and punctuality can

be important drivers for you, or

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they could be deeper principles.

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So they could be more in tune with

concern for others, harmony with

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the environment, self reliance.

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Or you can think about some of

the common career ones, which

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can be things like autonomy,

freedom, creativity, achievement.

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family security making sure that you're

aware of what your values are and then

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you can do a check in with okay is

my current career in alignment with my

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values and also is my company that i'm

working for in alignment with my values.

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Because, sometimes our

values do shift over time.

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And maybe if you chose your career or

fell into it, which is often something

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people say to me 15 years ago, say,

your values may have changed since then.

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It might be that your career isn't in

alignment with your values anymore.

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Or it might be this one value

that is now more important to you,

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that your career doesn't doesn't

feel like it fits with anymore.

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Doing that checking with your values

can help you understand how big

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a crisis or glitch you're facing.

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Because you can think okay.

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Is it salvageable?

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So if maybe there's one aspect of my

career that doesn't align with my values,

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am I able to make some changes that

will salvage that aspect of my career?

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Or is it actually redeemable?

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Is my career no longer in alignment with

the most important values that I hold?

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Or it could be around, maybe

the company's values don't

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align with yours anymore.

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So it helps you determine the

level of change that you might need

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to make to get those questions

answered around fulfillment.

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Is it right for you?

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What will make you happy?

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What will give you more meaning?

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Then we need to think about turning

it into a career opportunity.

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And , you've done the reflection,

you've done the examination of

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what's going on in your career, but

now it's a question of planning what

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action you're going to need to take.

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That can be thinking about,

okay, do I need to be making

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quite a big change in my career?

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Am I talking about, a career change

and doing something different?

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Or is it actually a,

maybe a pivot or a shift?

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Maybe it's finding a new role

in a different organization,

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but it's the same career path.

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Or is it shifting, pivoting to

something that's aligned to what I've

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done before, but is a bit different?

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Or is this about making some

changes in my current role that

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I can make changes to, or maybe

I need to get some buy in from my

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boss or peers or, senior leadership?

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But whatever happens, you're not

going to be staying the same.

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Things will be moving, will

be shifting, will be changing.

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Because if you're staying the same, you're

going to be sitting with that feeling

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of unhappiness, unease, uncertainty.

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Recognizing actually there is

going to be some change or shift.

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needed here and recognizing that actually

that can bring a degree of anxiety.

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Because as humans, we don't tend to like

change massively, but by taking some

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action and making a plan for yourself.

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Having a plan A and maybe even a plan

B will help manage that uncertainty and

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give you a sense of agency in your career.

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Viewing this, reframing it as an

opportunity to get more fulfillment, more

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enjoyment, more meaning in your career can

help you to put that plan into action.

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Then you can think through, okay maybe

I need to think about setting myself

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some new goals in my career or a new

intention in my career and actually

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verbalizing that, writing that down you

could find it useful to think, okay,

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what's my goal for, say, three years?

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What do I want to be

different about my career?

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in the future and then

working back from that.

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Okay.

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What does that mean then for in a year?

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What's the goal that I want to be making?

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What does that then mean for six months?

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What's the goal?

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What's the goal for three months?

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Then what's the goal for one month?

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So you're breaking it down and

making it easier and more manageable

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and accessible for yourself.

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And then thinking about,

okay, who can help me?

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Because you don't have to go it

alone when you're thinking about

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change or shift or Even making a bit

of a change in your existing role.

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Thinking, okay, who can help me with this?

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Is it is it my peers?

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Is it my boss?

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Is it somebody in my organization?

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Is it a mentor?

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Is it in my industry?

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Or network?

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Family?

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Friends?

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Or even some external

support like a coach.

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Recognizing, actually, I

don't have to go it alone.

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I can get some support in this area.

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And then thinking about the first steps.

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Don't overload yourself

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it can be about, okay, my first

step is to do some more thinking

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around this area or more research.

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But keeping in mind the momentum,

the goals that you want to achieve.

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With any kind of change, whether it's

big or small, your motivation, your

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mindset is really important, really key.

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You could start to think about, okay,

I'm recognizing at the moment I'm feeling

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dissatisfied, I'm feeling uncertain,

or I'm feeling I'm happy in my career.

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And thinking about, , the change

that I want to make, what's the

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difference that change will make

to how I feel about my career?

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When I've made that change.

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So am I going to feel energized, excited?

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Am I going to feel fulfilled, happy?

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What's the feeling that I'm going

to generate through the change?

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And then being able to tap into

that feeling, because that will

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really help you motivate yourself

to take action and to continually

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tap into that desire for change,

because your career is important.

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It gives you identity.

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It gives you purpose.

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It gives you confidence.

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And so taking the time to do that

reflection, being grateful that actually

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I'm experiencing these feelings now.

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It gives me the time to really understand

what it is I need to add into my career

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or to change to get what I need from it.

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Thank you so much for listening

to this episode of the Unstuck

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and Unstoppable podcast.

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I have lots of free resources you

can access on my website, ww.career

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tree coaching.co

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uk, and I'll also put

links in the show notes.

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If you found this episode

helpful, then please subscribe

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so you don't miss the next one.

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And please do share it with a

friend and leave me a review

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and I will personally thank you.

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Remember, you're capable of more

than you know, shine brightly.

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Lead boldly and unlock the

extraordinary potential within you.

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Be unstoppable.