Category Archives: Career Change

Posts related to career change

From Excuses to Action

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In part 2 of my post “What’s Your Excuse?” we’ll focus on how to move from making excuses to taking action.  A very practical solution is outlined in the book Five Steps To Overcome Resistance to Change, by Harvard professors Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey.  Their five-step process is straight-forward, logical, and easy to follow.  In this post, I’ll outline the authors’ 5 step process and use my own experiment in breaking down the excuse barrier as an example.

First, I took a sheet of paper, divided it into 5 columns, and labeled with the titles shown below.  (If you are like me and find it easier to type than write, you can create a table in Microsoft Word.)  In the first column, I recorded my current behavior, noting what did or didn’t happen as a result of my assumptions.   In my case, I noted my habit of relegating my writing and other creative projects to the weekends.   I had plenty of excuses.  I commute, I work from 8:30 to 5, most nights, I’m tired when I come home…and so on.   As a result, my creative projects are squeezed into free time on the weekends.   In  the second column, I jotted down experiences or other evidence that might cast doubt on the validity of my assumption.  In my case, I noted that I had taken photographs of a sunset, for example, after work.  That evidence disproved my belief that I didn’t have the time or energy to work on creative projects during the week.  I also noted that I wasted some of my free time by watching too many re-runs on TV.
Current Behavior Contrary Evidence Explore the History Test the Assumption Evaluate the Results  
I tell myself that I can only write and do other creative projects on the weekends and I don’t have time during the week.  As a result, I’m frustrated when I’m busy on the weekends and don’t have time to “indulge” in creativity.  This is not healthy for me and makes me difficult to live with! Is it true I have no free time during the week?  In fact, I spend far too much time watching reruns on TV in the evening.  I could use that time to write or edit photos even if it’s just for half an hour.  Occasionally, I have also used my free time during the week to take photographs. I believe that I can only do creative projects when I have the right conditions—enough sleep, enough time, enough quiet.  This assumption took root in my 20′s when I was working, commuting, and going to grad school. In the evenings, I have started editing photos on my laptop.  Even if the T.V. is on, I can still concentrate on editing.  I’m also reading during my lunch hour, to get background information for a new writing project. The conditions aren’t always ideal, but there are some creative projects that I can do during the week.  This makes me feel satisfied and creatively fulfilled on a more regular basis.

Step 3 is to explore the history of this assumption.  How and when did the assumption(s) take hold?  In my case, it started many years before when I was working, commuting, and going to grad school.   Back then, I believed  that I needed to devote many hours at a stretch to writing or other creative projects and I couldn’t squeeze them into an “ordinary” day.

The next step is to test the assumption in a safe environment, which allows me to “escape” from the situation if I began to feel uncomfortable or uneasy.  In my case, one night after work, I took a series of shots of a beautiful sunset and on another night, I edited photos while watching TV.  I also started bringing a book to work, so on my lunch hour, I could do some preparatory work for a new writing project.

The final step is to evaluate the results.  My little experiment worked.   It gave me an alternate way to think and act  Even devoting a few minutes in the evening to photography or reading on my lunch hour left me feeling happier and more satisfied during the week.  My change was relatively easy and safe, however.   The authors caution that this is not an easy process, and tackling problems head-on in this way can be painful and challenging. However, it has been tremendously rewarding to understand the “old” assumptions were blocking me from acting.  It was liberating to bring my resistance to the surface and try out new tools to cope with an inner conflict that was preventing me  from achieving my goals.  If you try it, let me know whether it works for you too.

Source:  THE REAL REASON PEOPLE WON’T CHANGE
Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey

What’s Your Excuse?

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She was anxious.  I could read it on her face.

She had glanced at my address as I finished placing an order for a new pair of eyeglasses, and asked if I liked living downtown.  “I love it,” I said, gesturing out the shop window at the people ice skating in the park across the street and the coffee shops, restaurants, museum, and hotels within the perimeter of my gaze.   “An apartment is so much easier to take care of than a house,” I added.   She nodded and told me she was also thinking of downsizing and moving nearby.    Her children were grown, she explained, and she was tired of the expense and upkeep of a house.  Besides, there was so much more to do downtown than in the suburbs.  Her kids were encouraging her to do it, but she still hadn’t made the move.

She bit her lip.  “I’d miss my garden,” she said, wistfully.  “I love to garden.  Don’t you miss it?”   I told her did, but visited parks and other outdoor spaces to fulfill my need for green.   She continued to quiz me, and list other reasons why she shouldn’t make the move–the effort, the time, the expense, the housing market.  In the end, she thanked me for my opinion and said she’d keep it in mind.  I had the distinct impression that she was stuck in the data gathering phase, weighing the pros and cons and opinions of people, but wouldn’t ultimately take action and make the move.

When facing change, many people “get stuck.” Why?  Putting on my therapist’s hat, I’d diagnose her failure to change for several reasons:  1.  She is afraid ;  2.  She doesn’t want to make a mistake;  3.  It takes time and energy to move;  4.  She’s wondering whether the financial and physical “cost” of moving will outweigh the benefits;  5. She is not sure what the change will “give” her;  6.  She knows the change necessitates giving up something(s) that is/are valued.

I’ve been there.  Sometimes I can think of a million reasons why I should stay “stuck.”  It’s uncomfortable place, but its familiarity is oddly comforting.

Now, it’s your turn.  Think about a change you are contemplating.  It may or may not be voluntary.   It could be personal or related to your career.   If you are “stuck” between action and inaction, you are not alone.   Do any of these excuses sound familiar?  They were compiled by Morgan W. Mc Call, Jr. who collected managers’ and executives’ responses to the question, “Why haven’t you changed something you believe you should have?”   Do any of them resonate with you?

  • You don’t accept the need to change
  • You don’t want to admit mistakes or flaws.
  • You aren’t motivated to change.
  • You are weighing the costs in time and energy.
  • The benefit is unclear.
  • You are not personally committed to the change.
  • You don’t see the real importance of change.
  • You don’t know how to change.
  • The change requires that you give up something of value.
  • You are not sure what the change will “give” you.
  • You are comfortable the way you are.
  • You are afraid of looking stupid or feeling incompetent.
  • You feel intimidated by others who have made the change already.
  • You are too busy to change.
  • People around you don’t support the change.
  • You are afraid to make mistakes.
  • You are afraid of failure.
  • You need to be liked.

In part 2 of this post, we’ll explore ways to overcome resistance to change.

Comfort Food Guilt?

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When I’m stressed out, I reach for chocolate.  It’s my comfort food of choice.  Other favorites are tea with milk and sugar, and cookies.

My husband, on the other hand, reaches for salted nuts, pretzels, and potato chips.  This comfort food gender split is fairly typical, apparently.  In a Cornell University study in 2005 of 277 men and women, the researchers concluded that women’s source of edible comfort is in sweet and sugary foods, like ice cream, whereas men prefer savory food like steak and soup.*   Another interesting conclusion drawn from this study is that men seem to use comfort food as a reward, whereas women’s indulgence seems to provoke guilt.

This is certainly true for me.  But I’ve found a way to combat the guilt.

For chocolate, I eat a small piece nearly every day, often with my morning cup of tea.  That way I give myself a tiny bit of indulgence, which lasts all day long.  Other times, I save my piece of chocolate until the end of the day as a special treat.  I’d rather factor in that bit of indulgence into my overall calorie consumption and adjust accordingly by cutting back on bread or crackers!

As for my tea cravings, this also presented a problem, because I am sensitive to caffeine and simply don’t like the bland and boring decaffeinated teas on the market.   What’s worse is that my tea of choice is PG Tips, a rich, British black tea blend which is full-bodied and delicious, and heavy in caffeine.  But I solved that too after learning that most of the caffeine in tea is released in the first minute of steeping.  So, I pour an inch or so of boiling water into the teacup, swirl it around, pour it out, and then re-fill the cup with boiling water.  This little step eliminates most of the caffeine and I can happily drink 2 cups of tea without the jitters.

My question to you is–what is your comfort food of choice?  Do you feel guilty about indulging in it?  If so, how do you combat it?

(*Source:  Smith, Stephen W. “Comfort food psychology.” November 17, 2005. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/17/health/main1055408.shtml)

On the Road of Good Intentions

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The party season has begun.  Before we know it, we will be facing January, that month of contrition, when we resolve to undo the excesses of November and December.  Contrition often takes the form of  New Year’s resolutions.  They remind me of soda cans, soon discarded along the road of good intentions…that ancient, long, and well-traveled road, worn smooth by many shoes. Like many of us, I have made and abandoned these resolutions and felt worse for it.  Despite this, I keep making new ones.  One change I need to make is to cut down on refined sugars.  But every day, when I’m making my morning cup of tea, I slide my teaspoon into the sugar bowl, and my mind plays the same script narrated by my own little Glinda, the good witch, who debates my Wicked Witch of the West.

Glinda: “You know you should eat less sugar.”

Wicked Witch of the West:  “I know I should, but I love that jolt of sweetness first thing in the morning.”

Glinda:  “You really should cut back.  You know sugar isn’t good for you.”

WWW: “I know, I know, but it’s just one little teaspoon.  What’s one teaspoon?”

Needless to say, the Wicked Witch  often wins. But the fact remains that my Glindas, or good intentions, are not enough to change my behavior.  This mental battle is explained in the book Switch:  How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath.  The authors argue that our minds are  ruled by two systems:  the rational and emotional. In my little script above, my Glinda would be my rational mind and the Wicked Witch would be my emotional.  Therefore, I need to engage both Glinda and the Wicked Witch (my emotional  love of sweets).  Their compelling argument, supported by decades of research in psychology and sociology and case studies from business, health sciences, education, and the government, shows how to support the structure of lasting change.  The Heath brothers give detailed examples of how to engage our rational minds, motivate our emotional system, and structure a path that will lead to the final destination or goal.  In their chapter on “Overcoming Obstacles,” I can quickly find my problem:  “I know what I should be doing, but I’m not doing it.”  Their diagnosis and advice?  1)  My rational mind is on board, but I have an emotional problem.  I am not convincing my Wicked Witch (lover of sweets) to jump on the bandwagon; 2)) I can start out small and think of one tiny change that I can make right now, which will get one step closer to my goal;  3) I can change my “path” by making a change in my environment so that I’m “forced” to change.  For example, I could stop buying sugar or I could replace sugar with Stevia;  4)  And finally, I can enlist the help of someone else so we can reinforce the new behavior.

I have decided to choose option 2–starting out small.  I am going to gradually decrease the amount of sugar I use every day.  So instead of 4 or 5 teaspoons over the course of a day, I’ll use 2 …or 2.5.  I will keep you posted on my progress!

Now, here’s a question for those of you who have made a positive change this  year.  Why is it working?  Share the secret of your success at:  

If you’d like to take a look at the Heath brothers’ book, here the link:  http://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322413303&sr=1-1

Walking the Roman Ruins

 

Afraid of Technology?

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I was… even though I had tackled digital photography and blogging, iPods, Macs, and twittering.   But  the thought of mastering e-Learning software like Articulate and Camtasia and the dreaded F-word…Flash sent shivers through me.  I had hit a brick wall.  All of a sudden, I wasn’t sure I could learn it.

My son talked me through it.  “Don’t be like them,” he said.  “Them?” I asked.  “Them,” he repeated.  “Them” were the people who shunned technology because they were afraid, but camouflaged their fear by insisting they didn’t need to learn it or didn’t like it.   The minute he said this, I knew he was right.  I was afraid.  Fear was the elephant in the room I hadn’t allowed myself to acknowledge.   And what was worse, this elephant just about guaranteed that I couldn’t learn.    My son told me to stop it.  He insisted I could learn if I stopped being afraid.   “You can do it, Mom.  I’ll help you,” he promised.

From that moment forward. the fear started to shrink and shrivel like the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorothy doused her with water.  Soon, it was small enough for me to dissect it–fear of failure, of not being clever enough or young enough to learn something new in an area that I had perceived as difficult.  But was it really as difficult as I feared?  Why couldn’t I think of Flash in the same way I had thought about blogging years before?   “It’s something new, it’s fun, so let’s try it.”  When I wasn’t able to figure something out right way, I had stuck with it until I could.  Was this any different, really?

Well, now, I can tell you with a year or so experience under my belt,  that it isn’t different at all.    Being able to master something new, something out of your comfort zone all comes down to your attitude, perseverance, and identifying your resources.  This last point is crucial.  You need to know your go-to resources.   Sometimes they are books or information that you can retrieve from the web;  sometimes they are the people with “the knowledge,” and still, at other points, they might be instructional videos.   This last source has been terrific.  What could be better than to have someone actually walk you through a process or step?  And unlike a “real person” you can “ask” them repeat this knowledge over and over.

Here are four terrific knowledge resources that I’d like to share with you:

#1:   You Tube.   This is a fantastic resource.   There are thousands of educational “how to” videos on just about any topic you can think of.  Just Google the topic and select “videos” in the “everything”  column on the far left and you’ll be amazed how many you’ll find.  www.youtube.com

#2:  Lynda.com.  This is another great educational video source which offers thousands of video tutorials on how to use technology and software for the home computer, audio, video, photography, web, design, animation, and business.   Can’t figure out how to use your new iPhone or iPad?  Want to know how to use keyboard shortcuts for your G Mail?  Look no further.  www.lynda.com

#3: Wolfram Alpha. This computational knowledge base was created by human experts.  If you need to solve a mathematical problem, compute your mortgage payment for a 30 years at a 6.5% interest rate, or if you need to get data on a particular topic (the size of a freight container or even the size of a tracheal tube for a 5-year-old who weighs 45 pounds and is 44 inches tall, for instance), you can find it at www.wolframalpha.com

#4:  Ted Talks.  This site, run by a non-profit organization, houses a repository of  17-minute lectures on a variety of  topics in the arts, science, world issues, creativity, technology, and  design.  The speakers are often fascinating, provocative, and highly entertaining.  I am still mesmerized by the talk by Arthur Benjamin who is a mathematical “magician”, able to compute large sums at lighting speeds.  Listen to him at:

http://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_does_mathemagic.html

Who and what are your resources?  Let’s share!

Swimming Upstream

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In the past four months in my new job, I often feel like I’m a fish swimming upstream in a rushing river, eddying and swirling.  Navigating new territory–new responsibilities, new corporate environment, new names and  faces, new processes and procedures, new challenges–is exhilarating and exhausting.  My eyes are always focused on a distant point upstream, where I can finally tread water, because I will have mastered the skills and knowledge needed to do the job well.  Only then will I relax, feeling confident and satisfied that I have met these challenges and have had a positive impact.  It will happen, I remind myself.  Some day.

Then, one morning this week, I spoke with a friend from grad school who took a job similar to mine in Massachusetts.  She  called to ask my advice on how to handle a new management training project .   “I don’t know how to even begin.  It’s overwhelming,” she admitted.  And so, I told her how I was handling a similar training project, which required collaboration with in-house experts to create learning modules on various topics, which would be deployed in the company’s learning management system.   As we talked, I drew on my “vast” experience–which amounted to 2 months more than hers.  But, to my surprise and delight, I had learned enough to give her constructive advice, which she said eased her fears and gave her concrete steps that she can follow to tackle this project.

As you can imagine, I felt happy to help my friend, but I was also grateful to her because she made me stop and take stock of what I had already learned.  In my rush to get to that distant point upstream, I had never paused and looked back at how far I had traveled in the past few months.  It was a valuable lesson for those of us in new jobs to give ourselves permission to say, “I’m new on this job and need time to learn,” and “I’m overwhelmed and need to ask someone for advice.”  Equally important, we should stop every once in a while to take stock of the little lessons learned every day and every week, which accumulate over time into a body of knowledge and expertise.

Grateful

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It’s hard to find answers when you’re frightened and fumbling in the dark. It’s hard to be humbled.  It’s hard to admit  that you have no answers and that you are lost, that you have hit a mental brick wall.  But it is only at that moment of near hopelessness, when you are down on your knees, that you can look up and begin to see a glimmer of light, of hope. Sometimes it’s hard to even recognize hope when it arrives.  It may be disguised as a casual remark, tossed in our direction by a friend, by a relative, or even a stranger.   It may be an understanding pat on the back or something you heard on the radio.  It may be a bubble of an idea that pops to the surface after days or even months in your subconscious.  But help will come if you ask, if  you are patient, and if you listen hard enough.

This is what happened to me not long ago when my dear friend Susan called and mentioned a news story she had read in USA Today about jobs that will be in demand through this decade and beyond.  I almost didn’t want to hear more advice that wouldn’t get to the root of  my problem–I needed to a job, a good job that would help recoup some of our losses after the stock market tsunami in 2008.   For months I had searched for work in higher ed and publishing, but had only managed to land an adjunct teaching job on weekends at a college 1 hour away from home.  By then, I had finally faced reality–that my employment options and skill set were both limited and out-of-sync with the current job market realities.

During that call, Susan gave me a gift, one that I was finally ready to hear.  She suggested that I become an instructional designer.   Back then, I had no idea what an instructional designer was or did.  For all I knew, the job involved designing covers for textbooks.  Susan read the description in the newspaper aloud to me.   “It says here they design and create online courses.  You can do that,” she said with complete confidence.  I was less sure.  “You think so? Well, maybe I can,” I replied.

Her idea was a spark, which was fanned by my husband, who expressed the same confidence, enthusiasm and unshakable faith that I could take this idea and turn it into reality.  If I hadn’t been humbled by rejection and completely at a loss for answers, I might have never heard the wisdom of their suggestions.

This is what Lizz Wright is singing about in the song “In from the Storm.” In it, she is thanking the man who had faith in her when she needed it the most, who healed her after a foolish episode of love.   By way of contrast, you might want to listen to the song as it was performed originally by Jimi Hendrix.  I’ve played both versions, and I was stunned by the way each artist expressed the song in totally unique ways.