|
Home >> Archives
>> General Interest >> Winding Road Career Path
Many people expect a career change to follow a straight line. You identify interests and values and network with people in fields that appeal to you. You send out a resume and eventually you land on the lucky square and get a job.
This process works for a lot of people, but others find themselves following the winding road or the laser.
Meredith had planned to cap off her Ivy League degrees with an equally prestigious PhD. Yet after a year in the doctoral program she began losing interest in her coursework and had no motivation to come up with a dissertation topic. She tried talk therapy and massage to deal with stress. She began to realize that she wanted to heal people, not teach them and she began to realize the power of touch to heal her own trauma.
Meredith's began giving massages to friends. She left the doctoral program and began writing a novel, occasionally seeing clients (her state did not require a license at that time). She worked on the novel in fits and starts, using an old computer perched on top of a box in her living room. "Undirected" was the word that came to mind when people visited.
I lost track of Meredith for a few years. When she surfaced, she had decided to move to a southwestern state after a lifetime on the east coast. She had a house, a license and a thriving private practice. The novel was quietly abandoned.
Could Meredith have skipped directly to private practice as a massage therapist? Some people would, but Meredith had to wait till the timing was right. Sometimes watching someone make their way along a winding path can be. "Why don't they just do it?" we want to say. I remember thinking, "Meredith will never write that novel. She is wasting her time."
Yet of course she was not wasting her time. She was learning and growing and letting her career ripen in its own time.
Rushing a career is like prying open a rosebud: you have to wait for the next one to open and you may lose a whole season in the process.
Career coaches often find that clients will write a resume, conduct information interviews, and take all the steps toward their desired Career X, when suddenly they will answer a want ad or get a call from a friend that propels them into a wonderful job not in Career X, but in Career Y.
Could they have skipped the steps? I don't think so. Motion generates energy and we need energy to attract new careers, relationships and places into our lives. By moving purposefully and continuing to learn, people can evolve, often into a career that seems to pull everything together. If you ask, they'll usually say it was worth the wait.
Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., works with clients who want to make a move to career freedom, faster and more easily than they believed possible. Her website is http://www.movinglady.com.
Subscribe to her ezine: mailto:subscribe@movinglady.com.
Top of Page
|
|
|
