What is Your Career Story?
It is an interesting question to ask yourself, especially as you go through a transition. I have spoken with many former colleagues about leaving an organization where we all worked together. Many of them share a similar story, even though they worked in different parts of the organization. Leaving an organization is difficult and you miss the people that you worked with for all those years. There is a grieving process that happens because the company is part of your identity. It takes some time to fully accept the fact that all that is changing. Now you need to find a new role for yourself and create a new story.
Going out to find a new job after many years of being with the same company is a big challenge. You need to build an updated resume, start to network, if you haven’t already been doing that, and figure out what you want to do. This last part has been the most interesting part for people. Did you have enough passion to continue in a similar type of role? Would you now like to pursue something completely different? Many people that I coach are going through this career transition to find a role that will make them happy. This can be a tough decision, but it is an empowering one. What makes it so difficult? The following is a consistent message that I hear and may help explain the mindset that people have.
Organizations generally rank their people in terms of potential and performance. Managers then provide feedback that may sound like “you are doing all of these things well, but if you could just improve in these other areas, you will be considered for a promotion.” Another favorite is “you need to do the job before you get the job and we haven’t seen enough leadership from you yet.” There is always the reward that you seek, but the rules keep changing and your reward continues to be unreachable. You are told these stories repeatedly and you start to believe them. This can place some doubt in your mind about your capabilities and it can affect your confidence. These stories limit your belief in yourself and prevent you from stepping out of your comfort zone.
Leaving can help you gain some perspective about who you are and what you want. Were those stories accurate? What if they were wrong? What if you believed an entirely different story about yourself? What if you could do so much more in another organization if given the chance? Your belief in yourself is huge when you are interviewing for another role. Don’t let past opinions dictate your future and limit you. So many of my colleagues have gone on to take on bigger roles with more responsibility. They are viewed as “rock stars” now because they have learned so many great skills in their former positions and applied them quickly in the new company. They just didn’t know how much they knew until they were put to the test somewhere else.
You need to question whether the stories that others are telling you (or that you are telling yourself) are really true. Are you getting what you want in your career and your life? If you want to make a change, then do it. You don’t have to wait for a big event to happen. If you are proactively driving the story that you want in your life, then you control the narrative. You don’t need others to validate whether you are doing the right things. That is something that you can do all by yourself. You get to make all the decisions and write your own story.
Susan M Barber is President of Susan M Barber Coaching & Consulting, LLC.
She works with individuals, teams and organizations to build skills that leaders need to attain breakthrough results. Her passion for coaching and leadership development is driven by seeing the transformation of leaders as they reach far beyond their own ideas of success. She continues to drive custom programs for groups that want to make changes in their careers to become more powerful leaders. For more information or to follow her leadership blog, visit www.susanmbarber.com.
