Here’s How to Excel at Reinventing your Professional Career at Midlife.

Perhaps it’s just a niggle that you don’t enjoy your job anymore, but it’s a niggle that won’t go away. Or maybe you loathe your working life and get home each evening ready to hit the gin or scratch your eyeballs out.

Either way, this time it feels like you won’t be able to fix things by simply signing up with a recruiter and begging her to find you more of the same. This time it feels like you need a fundamental rethink of your career – a career reinvention even.

But hang on a minute... Haven’t you been here before - on the cusp of ‘finding your new path’? You slump a bit, hang your head, mull things over... At the end of the day your ‘package’ is pretty competitive – you don’t have to worry about paying the bills. You know your organisation, your team... Come on, you’ve been building your expertise in this field for over fifteen years...

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Career Change Can Feel Terrifying

Making big changes to a professional role at midlife can feel terrifying. I know - I’ve done it. But many succeed, and you can too. In one study* of midlife professionals who’ve reinvented their careers, 82% percent were successful and 87% were happy with the changes they made. 70% had the same or increased pay, and 65% said they felt less stress after making significant career changes.

​There are three things – or keys that will help you to not just reinvent your career at midlife, but excel at reinventing your career. Follow through on reinventing your career and you’ll enjoy huge benefits - whichever ones YOU want.
For some it’s about getting into a new field or starting the business that they’ve always hankered after. For others it’s about reinventing their career to work with different types of people, or to fundamentally change the nature of their working relationships; a guy who turned to teaching kids rather than selling computers to aggressive procurement managers springs to mind. For others it’s about reinventing to have more autonomy or more flexibility... The motivations are endless.

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Reinvent your Career : 3 Keys to Success 

​Key 1 : Use A Proven Career Reinvention Process.
Unless you’re lucky enough to have a fully-formed ‘vision’ come to you while you’re asleep, reinventing your career won’t happen overnight. By turns you’ll need to analyse, think creatively, undertake research and more. You’ll gather data, and insights...  And some of these activities might be more challenging than others.
Having a proven process will work wonders for keeping your 'career reinvention show' on the road. The process will support you and keep you on track, freeing you up to open your mind, to explore your passions, and discover what your soul longs for. The clearly defined steps of a great career reinvention process will keep you moving forward and stop you getting bogged down.

Key 2 : Career Reinvention Tools and Techniques.
As with any ‘job’, it’s easier and often quicker if you use the right tools; and reinventing your career is no different. The tools for successful career reinvention include well-designed templates and materials and also having the right thinking skills; for self-analysis and reflection and to investigate and synthesise data. Having the right tools will set you up to get the most out of your career reinvention process.
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Key 3 : The Mindsets of a Career Reinventor.
Want to give yourself the best possible chance of taking your thinking about your career into new territories? Then you’ll need the mindset or outlook to support your journey.  Having the right mindset enables you to tap into your appropriate emotional resources when needed, which you can then draw on to support you through each step of the process. I’m talking about open-mindedness so you don’t reject new ideas prematurely, confidence to believe in what’s possible and resilience to keep going when the process demands more from you.

A Professional Career to Leap Out of Bed For

 ​Feeling stressed, miserable – desperate even – most days when you return from work shouldn’t be anyone’s normal, and it doesn’t have to be yours. People sometimes think that their options close down at midlife - I’m convinced that they open up. Everything you’ve done and achieved to date can be a springboard for a brand new professional role or career.
Reinventing your career will likely be a ‘project’, but with a proven process, effective tools and techniques and a winning mindset, you can keep yourself on track until you reach your new work Nirvana. A place that you leap out of bed for each morning, where your work feels purposeful and makes you heart sing.
 
​If you’d like to learn more about reinventing your career as a professional why not download my free short ebook here.
If you’d like to learn more about the Reinventu™ career reinvention process then please get in touch.
Source : Time
© 2017 Career Reinventors 40+. All Rights Reserved.

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