Green Career Central Blog

Is it Time to Be Proactive in Your Career Change?

You can make a career change because an opportunity happens across your path by chance. But chances are that position will not be the best fit position for you. Yes, it may be okay, but will it fully express your greatest strengths and passions? Probably not!

To change your career, means taking proactive steps to:

• Discover the career that allows you to weave your favorite skills and interests together in a way that allows you to make a contribution that's unique to you.

• Prepare for your new role mindfully and strategically.

• Search for the position you've targeted as yours!

Although this path does take time, you aren't waiting to make the change. As soon as you decide you are ready to *explore* your options for a career change, you have begun your journey. In the moment you make that decision, your life takes on new meaning. New ideas,fulfilling experiences, and exciting synchronicities are what make the journey itself both inspiring and motivating!

"Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change." ~Jim Rohn

 

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How Are You Being Called to Greater Aliveness?

Years ago I worked with a client who told me she felt like she was a flower growing up through the crack in a sidewalk. She was investing a lot of time and energy in perfecting her contribution, but she wasn't really feeling supported by the environment and those around her.

That conversation I had with her so long ago, popped into my mind as I saw this sunflower growing and blooming in this seemingly inhospitable environment!

When you envision your future career, consider what you want to DO in your work and HOW you want to work. Thinking ahead of time about the culture and office environment can help you avoid situations that stifle your being and your growth.

Just as a blade of grass will push through a crack in the cement, growing toward the light, we too are being pulled toward a fuller expression of ourselves. That pull, or call, comes in many forms: in a dream, through a yearning, or from a desire to be released from an experience that has hemmed us in. How are you being called to greater aliveness? ~ Mary Manin Morrissey

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A Year From Now

A Year From Now You Will Have Wished
You Had Started Today -- Karen Lamb

This holds for making the transition to a career that is more fulfilling, returning back to school to get the degree you've been yearning for, or taking the steps to get engaged in the green industry that calls to you.

In most situations you can make these small, strategic actions without tipping your hand about your ultimate goals. Even if you are fully employed, set aside a little time each month to explore, learn, and engage in the topics that inspire and intrigue you!

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You Aren't Indifferent at All

My guess is that you aren't indifferent at all!

You care very deeply about all that's happening to our planet and the beings that make our planet home.

Where you may be struggling a bit is figuring out how to use your professional expertise in a way that makes a difference---whether that's at a global level or in your local neighborhood.

Although it may feel rather daunting to figure out the best way for you to contribute to the issues of our era, for now, celebrate that you are among the "different" people!!

 

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Embrace Your Uniqueness and Change the World

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action,
and there is only one of you in all time."
-- Martha Graham
American modern dancer and choreographer

When you bring your passions, skills, talents, past experiences, and education together into one career, you have a unique perspective and expertise to create or contribute to sustainable, restorative, and regenerative solutions that build a better world--where the land, people, wildlife, and economy thrive.

Although you may not think of yourself as all that unique, you really are the interaction of everything you've ever done, experienced, and researched through your childhood, your school years, and your professional life.

If you don't claim and express your uniqueness, you are withholding all that you have to contribute to the issues of our times.

Continue reading . . . 

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Embrace Fear and Do What Scares You

"Fear is an opportunity to help get you to where
you want to be." -- OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network

So often we turn away from the things that scare us. By backing away we actually lose a precious opportunity to take a leap forward.

Have you ever tried a physical activity that scared you a bit? And then when you get up the nerve to do it, you found you were energized by the experience?

The same thing can happen in your career. Perhaps the idea of attending a new networking event or the thought of having to give a presentation create so much unease within you that you keep yourself from even trying new things.

Ease into it. Finding ways to take incremental steps to become more comfortable with a new skill or experience is a great way to start. Over time you'll feel more confident in your ability to take the leap and do the thing that's been scaring you.
 
Bottom line...don't let your fears stop you in your tracks. Figure out a way to take some smaller steps until you feel ready to move through the fear.
 
Be sure to take a moment to notice how you feel after the breakthrough. Remembering this feeling may help you make the leap more easily next time.

(Photo courtesy of OWN) 

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Certain Things Catch Your Eye - Pursue Only Those That Capture The Heart

 
There are so many "bright, shiny objects" in our world these days. Our gadgets, flashy movies, fashion, adventures...the list goes on. Everything moves so fast it's easy to get sucked into thinking that these eye-catching things should capture our attention and sustain us.

In the career world the bright, shiny objects are the jobs and careers that get labeled "Hot Jobs/Hot Careers" by the media. The fastest-growing, the highest paying, yada yada...you get the picture.

Yes, these positions may be growing and may pay well, but if they don't align with your interests and your natural talents then it doesn't matter to YOU how exciting they look in the abstract!

The careers that you should explore are those that capture YOUR heart, that stir YOUR soul, that awaken a passion in you that burns bright.

This means that the "hot" job/career you are looking for will NOT be defined by media lists or even what others around you are doing. You will find your "hot" career through an internal journey of reflection and discovery.

The career you discover in this way will continue to fuel you and feed you for the long run. Within these positions you'll be able to contribute the whole of your being to causes you deeply believe in.

(Photo courtesy of Gravity Glue.)

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Changing Times Bring New Ways to Birth Innovation

Attention Innovators, Trailblazers, and Aspiring Pioneers!

Over the last few months I've noticed a specific misconception that is causing my clients a fair amount of frustration. My hope is that these tips will help you so you don't fall into the same pit of frustration.

Here's the core notion:

You may think that bringing an innovative idea to life is something you need to do on your own, but what I'm seeing more and more is that true innovation comes about through a collaborative effort that leads to a creative evolution of the original seed of your idea.

Initiating Change on Your Own

To give you a sense of how this unfolds, let me share a compilation of the scenarios I see in my work with clients and the conversations I have with colleagues.
 
You have the seed of an idea. It's an innovative idea. Something no one has approached in this way before. You may be seeing a way to tackle an existing problem in a way that brings new potential solutions to the surface.

You are doing all you can to nail down all the details, thinking you need to figure it out on your own. You may spend weeks, if not months, trying to rein in the many ideas circling in your mind.  Continue reading . . .

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An Unexpected Tip for Navigating the Path to Making a Difference

As you start to walk out on the way, the way appears ~ Rumi

 

If you are waiting for perfect clarity to begin what you are called to do, then you may never get the clarity you are looking for.

Clarity evolves and refines as you start walking in the direction of your vision. Each step, each encounter, each conversation adds another piece to give you a better sense of where you are headed.

This may feel like it's the exact opposite of what you've seen in my writings before...about the importance of knowing where you are going.

What I've found in my own work is that finding a core vision comes FIRST - what I want to do/how I want to contribute.

THEN with that point on the horizon as a guide, I start moving in that direction -- before I know exactly how I'm going to get there, before I know exactly what it's all going to look like.

So there is a phase of inner reflection and new insights that then guides us as we begin walking in the direction of that future.

• Where are you with these two parts of the journey?
• Have you experienced these before?

(Use the comments area below to share your thoughts!)

 

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Are You Worrying About Your Career?

How much of your time is spent worrying about your career? Your next move? Your options for using your talents to have a positive impact in your world?

It's easy to get sucked into focusing on what's not working. What you can't do. What you don't want to do. What isn't possible.

I know this path well. My father was a professional worrier! Yes! His job was to worry. He had to think through a wide range of contingency plans - constantly - for years on end. Always on edge. Always looking for the one thing he missed!

Of course this way of thinking filtered into our home life as well. So I learned to worry too. By osmosis I learned to watch everything around me to make sure I didn't miss anything.

Although this way of living most likely contributed to my ability to sense subtleties in my work with clients (for which I'm most grateful!), it also meant that I invested FAR too much of my life energy in worrying about just about everything!
 
I really didn't know a different way at that point in time. But a fatigue illness when I was 30 years old served as the catalyst for me to begin to pay attention to my thoughts. I finally realized how much worrying was robbing me of my energy and, in many ways, my life!

Over time I've shifted my focus. What do I want? How might I create that? How can my work and life be even more fulfilling than it is now?

If you are worrying about your career, and the decisions you must make, I invite you to claim what you know you want and then build from there.

Starting from a sense of what's working, what excites you, and what fulfills you gives you a much stronger foundation for creating the career that makes you feel alive and engaged.

"Worrying is using your imagination to create something you don't want." ~Abraham-Hicks
(Photo courtesy of Sacred Geometry
Original art by Tim Hildebrandt)

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