Career Change Secrets

You have decided it is time for a career change. You are tired of your current job - it drives you crazy or leaves you feeling flat. You know deep within that a new career will make all the difference.

Some of your friends encourage you just to wait a few more years until retirement - or they tell you to stop searching for greener pastures - or they just shake their head.

Often what our friends and family say to us can add to the anxiety and fear associated with career change. Anxiety and fear are not a recipe for career change success.

Career change can be a time of confidence, excitement about the possibilities, inner calmness and a flood of successes - if you want it to be!

Does that sound too good to be possible?

It is possible!

The process of career change brings up many emotions within people. There is the fear of running out of money, the fear of ending up in another job you hate, the anxiety about what your parents or colleagues will say, the worry about supporting your family, the ......

.....wait a minute.

The emotions that people normally feel during career change such as fear, anxiety, unworthiness, hopelessness, inadequacy, being lost or anger are usually viewed as unpleasant and stress producing.

Do they have to be? What is stress and where does it come from?

Many authors would have you believe that stress and worry are created by the situation you find yourself in. Career change scores high on stress tests. This externalized view of what creates stress does not help you deal with the stress though.

Stress is really our inability to accept things as they are. It comes from our inner judgement of the situation, and our desire for the current situation to be different than it is.

What if you were to not judge the emotion .... but instead just feel it. What if fear was not good or bad, but simply fear. Anxiousness is kind of a low level fear that pervades many people's lives, but it too is just an emotion - not good, not bad.

If you are wondering if you are judging an emotion then just look at if you want to get rid of it, cover it up or change it. If you want to do any of these things then you are judging the feeling at some level. Career change in itself is not positive or negative, if you decide it is negative then you may feel stressed by the process. If you judge it as positive then you may feel empowered by the process.

Releasing your judgement of the feeling you are having will help you not be controlled by the feeling. I don't mean pretend you don't have the feeling or stuff the feeling away. I believe in acknowledging the feeling but not judging it as good or bad, and not letting the feeling control you.

Yes, career change is an time when lots of emotions are stirred up. You get to decide if you want those emotions to control you or if you are going to be in control. Simply feel the emotions, and don't judge them and build them up into unnecessary stress.

I know a gentleman, let's call him Fred (not his real name) who moved to a small community to get away from his "stressful" job in the big city. He has enough money to live comfortably, and he says he doesn't want the "stress" of a job with responsibilities.

To get a little extra cash and occupy his time, he decided to take a job stocking groceries at a local grocery store. Interestingly, he finds this "non-stressful" job very stressful.

Is it the job that creates Fred's stress or is it something else? Why does one person find a job or situation stressful, whereas another person has no stress in the same job or situation?

It is simple: they have different feelings and different interpretations of what those feeling mean. As well, the little voice inside each person's head is a different voice. Your voice is saying different things to you while you read this then every other person who has read this page so far.

Your little voice in your head is in large part a reflection of your beliefs. Do you believe career change is stressful, or not?

How do you know what your beliefs are?

You can uncover your beliefs by starting to take notice of the little voice in your head. Your little voice comes from your subconscious mind. By taking notice of what the voice from your subconscious mind says, you will begin to get an idea of what your inner beliefs are.

Your little voice comes up with stories and scenarios about what might happen in the future. It is also great at judging things that have happened in the past. Believing what you hear from this little voice is the biggest source of stress. The trick is to learn how to not listen to your little voice!

All manï¿½s miseries derive from the inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

- Blaise Pascal

Has listening to this little voice ever created stress for you? Has this stress ever helped you feel more alive, earn more money, find a better career, or improve your job performance?

So what can you do to ease the stress created by this incessant little voice? How can you learn to make a conscious choice about what you listen to or don't listen to?

Just as you must make a choice about what advice you listen to from other people, you need to make a choice about what to listen to from the inside too!

How can you even tell what voice you are listening to?

It is very simple. If the voice in your head is negative, or says you can't or shouldn't, or says you aren't good enough....... then it is your little voice talking.

I suggest you stop listening to that voice.

There is another voice inside you that you need to start listening to more. It is a quieter voice but it is always supportive and positive and strong. Different people call it by different names, but everyone has this voice too.

I call it the wise one..... or your higher self.

The little voice in your head is closely linked to your emotions. When you are not wanting to feel a particularly uncomfortable emotion youi little voice usually gets louder and louder. Typically people try to cover these emotions up. Overeating, eating chocolate, drinking, an obsession with sex, using drugs - all are indicators of a person who is not able to deal with uncomfortable emotions that they feel inside. These types of behaviors hide the real underlying emotions.

I have begun to realize that these behaviors of themselves are not good or bad, the only real issue is do they support you in creating the life you want, in finding the career of your dreams, or do they not support you?

There is a ton of information and research available about how emotions that are ignored or suppressed are stored in the cells of your body. They remain there until they are released - or - they build up to a point where they create physical illness in your body.

Learning how to feel your feelings as they arise, and releasing all the unfelt emotions from the past is one powerful way to ease the chatter that you hear from the little voice in your head. A second tool which reduces the chatter you hear from your little voice is to give your mind something more important to focus on.

How do you do that?

Uncover and focus on your purpose and mission in life.

When you focus on why you are here and what you can contribute to make the world a better place, instead of focusing on your troubles, the stress of career change disappears. Instead of focusing on yourself - focus on how you can help others achieve the success they desire in the world.

Amazingly, once you define your mission and you know your purpose for doing everything you do, your mind chatter begins to decrease. Your stress and worry decreases. Career change begins to feel exciting and you become open to your own amazing potential and the amazing potential that the world has to offer you!

This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a true force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

- George Bernard Shaw

There are some key steps you can take to make career change - and life in general - more joyful, more rewarding and more abundant.

1) Know what you want in a career

2) If you don't know what you want, then know what you don't want.

3) Use the opposite of what you don't want to determine what you want.

4) Did I say know what you want?

5) Get excited about what you want.

6) Get rid of beliefs that tell you can't have what you want.

7) Be open to what shows up, whenever and however it does.

You probably guessed that I am hung up on knowing what you want, and rightly so! I have seen how dramatic the effect of knowing what I want has been in my own life and soooooooooooo many people simply don't know what they want.

Do you?