A few years ago I made a big career change. I went from working in a city consultancy to working for myself. I’d made a career change before, from working in media (mainly at Disney) to strategy consultancy, but that was one of those compromise moves you make when you’re too afraid to make a really big change.
So my second time around, I decided to get things right. Three things were really important:
- I realised that I loved SO MANY THINGS that they would never fit into just one job. Writing, building a brand, psychology, troubleshooting, performing, travel, outdoors, design, helping people be amazing…. Lump that in with my need to have lots of projects on the go, and it was pretty clear I had a choice: spend the next 5 years fruitlessly browsing job ads, or admit right now that a regular job would never cut it. I knew had to create my own career.
- I wanted location freedom. I wanted the freedom to go on holiday somewhere beautiful and say “you know what? I think I’ll stay here another month and work from the beach”. Or closer to home, to simply spend the summer working in the sunshine of a London park ratherthan gazing mournfully out the office window, waiting for the weekend.
- Plus I needed control over my hours. I wanted to be able to stay up to 2am when I had a flash of inspiration, safe in the knowledge that I could sleep until 10. Rather than having to stop just because of the clock… and find I’d lost my drive the next day.
Thing is, I didn’t know where to start. Looking at my CV, my list of things I loved didn’t really have an obvious home! I wasn’t a ‘writer’ and my work had been mainly intellectual rather than people based. Plus I didn’t have a business degree (and I didn’t want to get funding) – how could I work for myself?
Well, needless to say, I made it happen. One step at a time.
First step was that I picked something that would tick some key boxes – coaching, as it turns out.
Importantly, I knew that coaching (in its conventional form) WAS NOT MY ALL-TIME DREAM CAREER when I started out. It was something that I was MOULDING to become my dream career. Kind of like buying a house knowing you need to do it up to suit you – when you buy it, it’s got the REALLY RIGHT
foundations and size, but to make it perfect you’ll have to invest some time and do some work on it.
3 RULES TO CUSTOM-MAKE YOUR PERFECT CAREER (and stop looking for an off the shelf job)
- You can only DIY your dream career by having some idea of what is important to you, your strengths and what makes you tick (so prep work and understanding your personality is key).
- Get started before quitting your job (that way you can experiment safely).
- Make sure you have perpetual freedom by creating a free range career where you work for yourself and have the flexibility to change things to suit you as you go.
That’s what I did with coaching. I did my qualification while working full time in a demanding consultancy (if I can do it working 12 hour days, trust me, you can too!). I experimented with my market while still working – who did I most like working with? I created a brand that suited that profile, and kept playing with it as it evolved. In that process I quit my job, and that gave me the push to take things to the next level.
All along, I kept to my 3 basic ‘dream career wants’.
- I integrated all the stuff I loved into my career. I get to write (watch this space for a book deal…), design anything from Free Range t-shirts to web pages, travel the world, be outdoors, perform… oh yes, all the things I listed at the top of this article as my ‘loves’, I have integrated into my career step by step. Best of all, it turned out that while the idea behind coaching was nice, I really wanted to work with groups. TURNS OUT, RUNNING LIFE CHANGING GROUPS AND WORKSHOPS IS MY CALLING! I’d never, ever have got there if I’d sat around thinking about it – by getting out, doing something that had the right base elements, I got to tweak things and discover exactly what works for me. So I broke the rules, stopped doing one to one work and now ONLY run my Dream Career Group Coaching course, as well as workshops and tele-seminars. Funny thing is, that group course is the most effective programme I’ve run; following what I wanted has benefitted others.
- I made my business location independent. Most of my courses are over the telephone –which allows me to do things like travel around California this September while still helping people change career in the UK.
- I enjoyed my time – working at my natural rhythm means I get a LOT more done. And I’m so much more energised from it.
A life where you’re no longer putting your dreams on hold seems far away when you have bills to pay, and a CV that doesn’t fit the things you’d love to do.
Maybe it’s far away because you’re looking in the wrong place. A single off-the-shelf ‘job’ might not be the answer – relying on an employer to see your potential in a new field might just keep you paralysed in a career dilemma forever.
If you love a lot of things, you like variety, and don’t want to be trapped in a boring career, then CREATING a bespoke free range career opens up new possibilities.
Possibilities that can happen in reality, not just in your head.
What would be possible for you if you considered creating a Free Range career?
PS: In case you’re thinking ‘I can’t afford it’, within a year I was back up to my old income. In a tough market, doing something completely new in an industry that was new to me. It can be done if you do things right!
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Marianne Cantwell has banded together with two other leading experts to show
you how to trade in your 9-5 drudge for a free range career (without becoming
homeless).
This September, join us on three FREE Escape Your Career Cage tele-seminars where you learn how to discover what you really want to do, how to finance the change and how to get paid to play (without starting again at the bottom). Best of all, we show you how to get started without leaving your job.
Join the calls from anywhere in the world ---> First 99 places are FREE, and this is a one off. Register here.
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