#689: How To Change Careers with Certainty

I remember looking around this corporate office, seeing people looking sad, looking despondent, lacking energy. Maybe they've been at the company for 10, 15, 20, 30 years. And I just thought, this can't be me. Welcome to the Self Belief Chief podcast. You're here with David Holman. If you haven't done so already, make sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to it so you can get the latest insights, research, science, experiences that I've been having with clients, so you can get some added value and really get those changes that you want in your life. And let's begin. So I was looking around this office floor. I was about 24 at the time, and people just looking dejected, lacking energy, didn't really have any passion for what they were doing. So this was a big company, people sort of 30, 40 years older than me. And I just thought, this can't be me. You know, no problem for them if that's. If that's what they want to do. And we have responsibilities in life. If that's the job they want, that's all power to them. But I wanted to be doing something where I was passionate about it. I had a level of energy. I really felt like I was making a difference. And the thing was, when it comes to changing careers, I'd already had to do it once. I was a footballer growing up and had to retire because of an injury. Really, you know, I could. I was sort of playing, but I wasn't really able to play at the level I'd been showing previously, so I kind of had to give it up. So I moved into this corporate world. And then I was looking around this corporate world, and I was thinking, I don't. I don't want this. This isn't my life. And I'd always had an interest in human behavior ever since about 14, 15 years old. And I'd been researching and studying it for years even by that point. So I knew there was something in that space that I wanted to do. And for a couple of years, I started getting into the idea of maybe creating a coaching business or something along those lines. But I knew where I was wasn't for me. So I've actually had to change. Not only change careers twice, change industries twice. And I know how terrifying is and how uncomfortable it is and why many, many people just settle. But here's the issue with just settling for something that you don't really want to do. Jim Carrey told a story of his father. And his father was a very talented musician. He could have been a Musician anywhere. But he wanted to keep it safe. So he got in a job. He got a job as an accountant. So rather than traveling and doing what he loved to do and at the risk of it all, decided to be an accountant because he thought was a safe job. A year into the job, he got made redundant and the family struggled for years after that. The meaning Jean Carrie took from that when he was older was you can fail at something you don't love, so you might as well have a go at what you do love. That's always stuck with me and, but I've always liked certainty and security as well. So it's like, how do you marry those two things up together? Well, I want to take you through the five steps I take my clients through. I sort of studied my own experiences changing careers. I studied other people and worked with plenty of people. I worked with people who've done it really successfully to model five steps that people who successfully change careers all do. So here we go. The first step, I call it your future found. Your future found. I take people through a series of about, I don't know, 20 something questions where it keeps narrowing down and narrowing down and narrowing down the options and the industries and the choices so they get really, really clear and specific because clarity brings things closer. We got to know what the bullseye is. We've got to know what we're aiming at now. One of the things people struggle is with is people go, oh, there's lots of different directions I could go. I actually think it really helps to eliminate things first. So you go on Google and do a simple search for industry sectors. A whole list comes up at the top and you can just cross them off. Just cross off all the ones that you think I've got no interest in. I don't think my skill set serves that well. And you might only be left with say two or three industry sectors from, you know, however many there were in the first place. You know, you've cut down 95% of them. And then within those, you can start narrowing down and playing with those a little bit. But we've got to find your future, get some ideas first, get a sense of what the right direction might be. The second step, I call it risk reduced. The thing that's going to stop someone from changing careers is if they associate more pain with changing than staying. People who leave associate more pain with staying than changing. But if you kind of go back and forth, it's our staying feels really sorry. Changing feels really painful. Staying feels painful. So risk reduced is about getting certainty in some key areas like your finances, your relationships and your mental well being. So I help people shore those things up so that actually they can increase their sense of certainty. So if their certainty is only like a 3 out of 10 when it comes to changing careers, I'll try and get it up to say an 8 or 9. You're never going to get it to a 10, but can I get it nice and high so that actually we can kind of safeguard ourselves and protect ourselves and if things take a bit longer or this is a bit more taxing or challenging. And I'm an advocate for people to stay in their role until they find the next thing. But sometimes we get made redundant, don't we? And we're trying to find the next thing. So your future found risk reduced. The third step is called meet opportunity. So once we know what we're looking to do, roughly, is to then try and find those decision makers around those roles, try and work out who they are, even if it's just the positions, try and find out what they value most. What they value most, because it's not about what we value, it's about what they value. So we can find out 5 to 10 people in this space, right, who know the sorts of things that we want to do, try and reach out, connect with them and try and find the common denominator between what they all value. Because if you can find that common denominator, then we can move into the fourth step, which is called the belief breakthrough. This is where we take that common denominator of what they all value and develop it. Or if we've got to let something go, let go of something. But developing the thing that they value. Don't just do a load of random things to develop. Just be really efficient and developing the thing that most of those people value. That's how we can get that confidence. Because then we're developing in a way that we know is valuable in that space. So we've got your future found, we got risk reduced, we've got meet opportunity, we got the belief breakthrough. And then the fifth step is interview ready. So once we've developed in that value that they all appreciate, then we can, you know, design our CVs, our LinkedIn profiles, any other messaging or communication to basically present that value in a really powerful, impactful way, demonstrating we have a level of expertise in it, but also to give you that confidence in interviews as well, to know how to give the interviewer what they value. I find if you go through those five steps, it Makes it a hell of a lot smoother. And they're the five steps I had to take myself through, right? I gave them names at a later point, but they were the kind of things that I did to help kind of go through it a bit smoother. And it will still be tough, it'll still be challenging, still be, you know, frustrating at points or, you know, a bit, bit more stressful. But if we can reduce as much of that as possible so those feelings are less intense, then you'll keep taking action. And if you keep taking action, eventually you'll create enough leverage to get the thing that you really want. And it'll be right in front of you. You'll be able to feel it, you'll be able to step into it. And hopefully you like the sound of that. If you want to know more about that, you can visit the Self Belief Chief website, get more free content, more insights, more in depth information there. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day, enjoy the rest of your life and I'll speak to you again soon. Just one more thing before you go. 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