If what you’ve been doing professionally no longer seems to be working out the way you wanted or expected it to, it’s time to find ways to get closer to where you want to be. Whether that means initiating a new project that appeals to your personal interests or retooling your job to better match your strengths, only you can decide.
Regardless of what direction you choose to go, the first few steps you take toward a career path are crucial to ensuring that you will succeed with a new project or in a new or expanded role. Below, 12 members of Forbes Coaches Council share the first steps they think you should take when deciding how to change the trajectory of your career.
** See my recommendation #11 on how to Analyze Your Unique Skills With Your Manager. **
1. Get Clear On What You Love Doing
Start by making a list of all the things you do in the course of your job. From that list, transfer over only the things that you are truly great at doing. From that shorter list, transfer over the things you truly love doing. That list will be very short. Use that to guide choices about projects and professional development, and you will thrive. – April Armstrong, AHA Insight
2. Understand The Commitment Required
In addition to understanding your interest in a project, it’s important to understand the commitment required of you to apply your talents. There’s nothing worse than working on a high-energy project and finding that scope creep drains your enthusiasm and misplaces your talents. – Sheila Carmichael, Transitions D2D, LLC
3. Pause And Check Your Feelings
In thinking of a new project, pause and check your feelings. Go beyond trepidation and anxiety. Does it evoke curiosity, joy or enthusiasm? Is it a positive feeling? Next, consider purpose. Do you think the project will satisfy you more than profits or accolades would? As you consider the outcome, would you be proud that you could make a difference and feel appreciative of the opportunity? Finally, what strength would it leverage in you? – Valerio Pascotto, IGEOS
4. Prioritize The Goals You Want To Pursue
I recommend making a list of everything you’d like to pursue. Be concise, then prioritize it and create a road map to reach your goals. Share them with your supervisor or mentor, if you can. If they can’t help you for some reason, seek opportunities externally to fill those gaps. Retooling your career takes extraordinary thinking and effort, but more importantly, courage. – Janette Braverman, Leaders Leaving Legacies, LLC
5. Explore Your Natural Self
It’s not just the “what,” but also the “who.” Step No. 1 is to explore who you are behaviorally: your natural self. Understanding your behavioral drives and needs is key to knowing not only what you should be doing, but also who you should surround yourself with. – Brad Cousins, Ingage Human Capital Strategies
6. Show How It Benefits The Company
Show your boss that your proposal to retool your job isn’t for your benefit alone just because it plays to your interests and strengths; show how it will also benefit the company. When you can deliver a clear argument about why this new way of doing things makes sense, a manager may give you the green light. Remember, you are the one doing your job, so you may be able to identify best practices that no one else sees. – Jessica Sweet, Wishingwell Coaching
7. Define The Expectations Before Starting
The first step in any project, regardless of its purpose, is to clearly define the expectations for completion of the project. Fully understand what “done” looks like and how you will measure it. As humans, we tend to just jump right in to get something done without really knowing why or what is expected. Be clear on the expectations before you start. – John Knotts, Crosscutter Enterprises
8. Start With Your Top Three Big Dreams
I take clients through an exercise called “Dreaming and Scheming.” What’s a dream you’ve thought of a thousand times but never taken a step of action toward? Circle your top three big dreams and identify bite-sized steps of action you can take on them today. Send one email. Google a phone number. Sign up for a class. In this way, your current job shifts bit by bit toward your bigger goals. – Gia Storms, STORMS COACHING & CONSULTING
9. Take A Deep-Dive Personality Test
A deep-dive personality test, such as Myers-Briggs or Big Five, would provide one’s behavioral preferences and identify natural strengths and weaknesses, showing where in life one is “wired” for success and happiness. This is the “authentic you,” and I can’t imagine more valuable insights or predictors of success when deciding on a change in career or business focus. – Steven Pfrenzinger, Astute Insights from a Self-Awareness Mastery Coach
10. Tie Your Personal Development Goals To The Business
Consider how you believe a new project or change in role focus would benefit your boss, the broader team and the organization. Identify the specific problems you can help solve, your unique value proposition and the expected results of the work. Once you have your business justification drafted, review it with your boss to gain input and support. – Amy Phillip, Career Certain
11. Analyze Your Unique Skills With Your Manager
Start with what makes you unique: your talents and passion. Do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis that encompasses your unique skills. Then, meet with your manager to review your analysis and determine how to leverage them further. Together, identify projects, initiatives, roles or opportunities that will add value to the organization while showcasing your talents in the long term. – Shelley Hammell, Sage Alliance, Inc.
12. Level Up In Your Current Job—Or Look Elsewhere
My advice is to find a way to retool your job to focus on your unique abilities and strengths. This means finding out how you operate best and whether or not you are sitting in the right seat in your company. Find a way to incorporate your strengths into your current job and level up. If this isn’t possible, then it is time to look elsewhere. – Jon Dwoskin, The Jon Dwoskin Experience
SAGE Alliance, a Leadership Performance Company; provides executive coaching, team-building, industry leading assessments, workshops and speaking on topics including: building a high-performing team through coaching, developing and optimizing your top talent, delivering commanding communications, creating a lasting impression, making a greater impact through personal branding for executives and high-potentials – for both team and individual leaders.
Shelley Hammell, is the president, CEO and author of You Think You’re Coaching, But You’re Not! available HERE, and is available for book signings and speaking engagements.