Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Job Change Advice: If you find yourself in a hole stop digging!

It’s easy to dig ourselves into a hole that feels impossible to get out of. For example, it’s easy to fall into a job with no intention of staying there only to realize, years later, you’re stuck there…it’s draining you body and soul, but you need the money just to survive or maintain a lifestyle expected of you by family and friends.

Our tendency is to look for a compromise, to find a way to keep the money but find a way to make life better. The solution for many of my clients has been to do more of what they think they want to do--paint, write, sing, perhaps, or start a business--a reaction to their job dissatisfaction or problems.

Sometimes, these options make the situation worse! Starting something new takes energy, something that is in short supply when they get home from work. Sometimes, their marriage or partnership breaks down; or, they go into debt or bankruptcy; or, they try to figure it all out on their own but they lack clarity, confidence, and resources. They slip into depression. In short, they reach a desperate place. They see no way out of their hole…trapped!

It might feel like a death trap but it is not a life-and-death situation. They are not homeless or hungry. There are personal and professional supports available—this becomes the time to draw on them. One of the most important resources to draw on is the creative spirit than resides in each of us. We may not be musical, or artistic in any manner, but we all have the power to create our future. Creating is a process and anybody can do it.

Changing your focus is the key to a midlife career change

The biggest obstacle to creating a new career or business or future is our inclination to compromise. We focus on the wrong things, on what we think we can do for money, instead of what we want to do. In my experience as a job change expert for the past 20 years, what I see is a lack of vision based on one’s deepest values and highest aspirations.

In the creative process, it is important to love the creation before it exists—to love the dream home before it is built, to love the song before it is written, to love the child before it is born. The same principle is to get a vision for a career or job and love it before you find it our create it. An entrepreneur loves the business before it is built. A chef loves the dish before it is made. A filmmaker loves the film before it is produced.

In terms of work, too many of us have lost touch with what it is we love to create. How do we know? By comparison. When it is not there, you feel like you're going through the motions, disengaged, uninvolved, disconnected—in short, you don’t really care, it’s just a paycheck. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can become a problem after many years, especially if it drains your energy, and plants you in a hole.

Love the result, not the process

One of the best ways to get out of a job hole, or career trap, is to push aside compromise thinking and focus on what it is you would love to create—the result. This does not mean you will love the process; you may even hate taking the necessary steps.

It is not a compromise to do the hard work, learn what you need to learn, develop the skills you may need but don't have yet. Easy or difficult, fun or a pain, throughout the good, the bad, and the ugly, that experience of connection, involvement, of being true to yourself and true to your creation will permeate everything you are doing. Sounds a little like parenting, doesn’t it?

Love brings out the best in us for parenting and career change. One thing I know for sure is that your chances of making a successful career change will disappear quickly if you forget or lose touch with your desire to see the end result, no matter what circumstances you are in. Being a creator is about keeping your eye on the main prize.

About Author:
George Dutch is a certified Job Change Expert For 20 years, I`ve helped over 3000 people just like you who felt lost or confused or trappeda and wanted a better job fit! Are you ready to change your job or career? And start working naturally and effortlessly so that you get ENERGIZED by your job instead of drained, dumped out, dumped on, or dead-ended? For more information please Visit www.jobjoy.com

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Labour Day in the 21st Century: What’s the deal now?

As a job change expert, I work on the front lines of our laissez-faire system of supply and demand in the job market. The corrosive effects of this system force some people to change careers when they lose their jobs or when they choose to look for a new job in order to advance their career or transition out of a bad situation into a better jobfit.

As individuals, we must learn to resolve the ongoing tension between periods of stability and necessary change. Normally, I provide practical and realistic advice on how to do so. But today is Labour Day, so I’ll take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Social systems change too, so what is the meaning of Labour Day in Canada for our new global economy?

I think it’s important to put Labour Day in its historical context. It has been celebrated in Canada during the first weekend of September since 1894. However, it became popular during the 8-hour day movement of the 1930s. The big unions finally got recognized and management said, “OK, you get an eight-hour day, steady work, steadily rising wages—just don’t question any of our shop floor or office practices. We’ll jerk you around for eight hours on the job, but we’ll pay you enough money to buy a house, buy a boat, take it to the lake, buy a refrigerator, buy a washing machine.”

In other words, the salesmen of this New Deal sold the idea of comfort, a condition where our risk is reduced. Salesmen strike with fear to get our attention but close the deal by offering to quell the risks of everyday life. This deal was firmly established by the 1950s, a sweet deal that grew in terms of influence and importance as the economy became dominated by big business, big government, big unions resulting in collective bargaining, high employment, job security—obviously not for everyone all the time.

Downsizing started in the 1970s with a cutback in labor costs enabled by finding cheaper ways to make things overseas, and along with this we had the return of a deregulatory, laissez-faire creed during the Reagan era (“Greed if good!), which culminated in the meltdown of financial markets in 2008. This meltdown was nothing new but rather a re-occurrence of the risks and dangers of laissez-faire capitalism that is always there.

Taking risks is important; it’s a valuable function of the economy. Risk is rewarded and cherished and applauded. What’s different now, it seems to me, is that risk is calculated only on an investment banker’s computer screen, and the consequences of their risk-taking is not carried by the bankers themselves but lands in the laps of ordinary people who see their jobs and/or their benefits disappear.

Today, we seem to have a prevailing ideology that celebrates risks for the multitude while protecting the handful—hence the appearance of the Occupy Wall Street movement that drew attention to the (undeserved?) privileges and (immoral?) practices of the 1% handful. Some economists say we are now in a big financial mess due to unsustainable debt. Unions seem powerless to stop this slide into financial irresponsibility and moral degeneracy. As a result of taxpayer bailouts for the automotive and financial industries, the unions now run the risk of being seen as part of that handful being protected from the consequences of the risk takers.

The deal is falling apart. Employers no longer guarantee eight-hour day, steady work, steadily rising wages. Employees no longer give unquestioning loyalty to their employers. Change is inevitable in any laissez-faire system. We’ve enjoyed a long period of relative stability and prosperity. The new global economy—driven by the emergence of China and other Asian countries as economic engines of growth—may be undermining the high standard of living we enjoy here in Canada, and putting downward pressure on wages and our ability to pay for a safety net of pensions, universal health care, and other cherished social benefits. Will this be the undoing of unions? Instead of helping to clean up the mess—involving new sacrifices and commitments—will they focus on insulating their members from inevitable change and its consequences?

We’re all in this mess together. How do we exercise our collective responsibilities–through unions, parliament, or other democratic means–to organize and manage society in a way that is humane and helpful to all? How do we soften the corrosive effects of laissez-faire capitalism? Unions, of course, will be part of this dialogue in the 21st C. But will they be a key player in solving these vexing questions?

About Author:
George Dutch is a certified Job Change Expert For 20 years, I`ve helped over 3000 people just like you who felt lost or confused or trappeda and wanted a better job fit! Are you ready to change your job or career? And start working naturally and effortlessly so that you get ENERGIZED by your job instead of drained, dumped out, dumped on, or dead-ended? For more information please Visit www.jobjoy.com