12 Oct, 2011
Stuck in a rut? Escape the career doldrums by Andrew Jenkins
Posted by: The Coaching Academy In: Coaching Articles|Corporate & Executive Coaching Articles|CPD for Coaches|Executive Coaching Articles|In The Spotlight|Life Coaching Articles|Personal Performance Coaching|Personal Success|Success Stories|Trainer In The Spotlight
Coaching Academy Trainer and Professional Personal and Business Coach, Andrew Jenkins, offers his views on reaching career crisis point and what you can do about it.
Unless you are one of those lucky people who love your job, then changing career can be a daunting challenge. If you have heard yourself say: “I must get out of here”, “I hate my job, I’m stuck-in-a-rut”, or “I’d like to find a more satisfying job, but I don’t know what I’m good at”, then you maybe at a career crisis point.
This is what happened to Andrew Jenkins.
Andrew’s previous career was in operations, managing multi-million change programmes. He said “I became increasingly unfulfilled in my role. My natural strengths and talents were the ‘softer’ and more people-based ones”. So, Andrew left his high-flying position with 3i (the global venture capital giant) and re-oriented his career into coaching.
He now runs his own coaching and mentoring consultancy company, specialising in coaching people, both inside and outside of their organisations, on their career, performance and personal development. He says “I now feel I am doing what I enjoy most and am best at.”
For many of us, work takes up a lot of our lives, but various surveys suggest that only around 30% of working people report being happy in their jobs. Leaving the rest dissatisfied or unfulfilled. Many claim to be unable to change their situation, due to factors such as: money, age, or lack of experience. Often however the real reasons lurk deeper-down within us. These are to do with our limiting beliefs about ourselves, or fear of change, so we accept our present crisis-situation.
According to Andrew, surprisingly, many of us have little sense of our natural talents and strengths, much less the ability to build our lives around them. Instead, guided by our parents, school teachers, and bosses at work, we have become experts in our weaknesses. We spend unfruitful time repairing these flaws, whilst remaining unaware of our dormant strengths and talents.
So, how does one get out of the career doldrums?
Andrew says, “firstly, it’s not just about your skills. There is a huge difference between doing something because you have the necessary know-how and doing something because you actively choose to”.
The key difference is to search for what motivates you most and apply these to the process of change. Your career aspirations must sit comfortably with your highest values though, because our values are core to what motivates us.
“Secondly” he says, “you need to reinvent yourself, and rediscover what your true dreams and ambitions are, and what you’re truly best at. You need match your unique-self to your dream-job”. He states, that we must eradicate our limiting beliefs to accept change; explore our highest values and motivations; and identify our strengths and talents.
You need to ask yourself: “What am I really good at? What do I want to do most of all? What is most important to me? What do I want to be remembered for?”
