Career Leap

How to Reinvent and Liberate Your Career

Michelle Gibbings

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780730352198
• eBook ISBN: 9780730352204
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Adapt you career to the shifting paradigm of work, employment and success

The word "career" doesn't mean what it used to. People entering the workforce today will have an estimated 17 employers and five careers in their lifetimes — and already many existing roles are being automated away, with many more to follow. No profession, industry or geography is immune, and employees need to change their idea of what it means to be employed. The rise of freelancing and the gig economy means flexibility and independence, but also less security — with trends showing it is the way of the future. You cannot future-proof your job, but you can future-proof your career. Career Leap shows you what you need to know, how you need to change and how you can prepare for the inevitable tides of change.

This book sheds light on the choices you make, and the steps you can take to reignite, reshape and liberate your career. You'll develop the confidence you need to take decisive action, sharpen your skills and become the agile, adaptive professional we will all need to be. The 10-step Career Reinvention Cycle helps you assess the status quo and determine where you need to go, and then gives you a solid framework for making a move when the time is right.

• Future-proof your career with the new laws for success
• Undertake a health check of your career and make deliberate career choices

• Design, build, and execute your influence and career strategy
• Be equipped to take control and leap ahead with your career.

No matter your role, it is imperative that you make every day in your career count. Make the critical decisions, take clear actions and, above all, stay ahead of the pack. Career Leap gives you the insight, confidence and knowledge you need to move up as you leap forward.

PHASE 1
ASSESS
Where are you in your career now?

Your career is just one piece of the big pie we call ‘life’, so you need to examine it in the context of everything that affects you externally and the decisions you are willing to make internally.

In this first phase, you’re going to assess your career as it stands now and where it could be in the future. You’ll identify what impacts your choices, including family, colleagues and individual circumstances.

Just as you have a regular medical check-up, you need to periodically check up on your career. How fit are you to leap? Have you been oiling the machine or have you been cruising, watching too much TV on the couch, eating potato chips and letting things get away from you?

Through this process you’ll start to identify your individual constraints and, more importantly, where there are opportunities. So let’s lose the remote control. It’s time to get fit for the future of work!

1
CHECK
Are you future fit?

‘Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.’

Lao Tzu

For some of us, work is a necessary evil, to be endured in return for money so we can pay bills, go on great holidays and fund a lifestyle — it’s a means to an end and nothing more. For the fortunate few, it’s something we love doing. Work gives us purpose, satisfaction, enjoyment and fulfilment.

Love it or loathe it, work is a critical part of your life.

Across your lifetime, you are likely to spend up to 100 000 hours at work or in some form of employment. That’s based on you starting full-time work at 18, retiring at 65 and working only eight hours a day for the standard 261 working days of the year. If you are a workaholic or are used to putting in a few hours of overtime each week, it’s likely to be substantially higher.

So wouldn’t you rather be doing something you actually like to do?

I don’t mean you’ll like every minute of every day (that’s totally unrealistic), but on balance you find it stimulating, interesting and valuable. Something you feel good about getting up for instead of hiding under the doona.

Many of us feel trapped in a job we don’t like. We’re bored, in a rut, stressed out or overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work we need to do. And yet we remain in that rut, telling ourselves, ‘Yeah this place sucks, but better the devil you know. At least I know how this place works.’ Or, ‘I don’t know what else to do. It’s too hard to find a new job.’ Or, ‘I can’t afford to go — this place pays too well.’

Does any of this sound like you? If your work makes you so unhappy that it impacts not just your wellbeing, but those around you, then it’s time to consider ‘voting yourself off the island’. That means taking control and making the decision to go somewhere else or do something different, even if it feels hard or uncertain.

---

Yes, finding work can be challenging, but a job doesn’t just provide financial benefits — it’s also critical for our self-esteem and mental health.

There’s no doubt there will be points in your life when throwing in a job could feel like an irresponsible luxury. There’s the mortgage, school fees and bills to pay. It’s not a luxury, though, when you’re working in an environment that is eating away at you, impacting your behaviour, destroying your self-confidence, and causing undue stress and anxiety. If you don’t change the environment, it will slow you down, block you or stop you in some way.

---

CAREER STOP SIGNS

Change is hard, which is why so many of us stay in jobs we hate until something (or someone) forces us to move on.

Here are six warning signs that it may be time for you to cast that vote:

1. Your performance is dropping. Your work environment no longer brings out the best in you. Your motivation is low so you only do what you have to do. This ‘bare minimum’ approach is impacting your performance, the outcomes you deliver and ultimately your reputation. This type of damage can have long-term consequences, including making it even harder to get that next job.
2. Your values are misaligned. Your values and those of the organisation are out of alignment so you feel like you have to change who you are when you are at work. This may show up as your not feeling comfortable voicing your opinion, or finding yourself forced to support ideas that go against what you believe in.
3. You now have ‘cynic’ as your middle name. You spend large parts of the day complaining about what’s happening at work. You don’t trust your work colleagues and you no longer offer ideas on how to improve things. You only complain about them.
4. You are constantly worried you are next in line. Your workplace is forever restructuring and making people redundant, and you are constantly worried about when the axe will fall on your role. You can see that technological change is going to consume your job.
5. You’re on the brink of burnout. You feel burnt out and the physical signs of stress are presenting in how you behave at home with your friends and family. You feel exhausted all the time and the thought of going to work makes you feel anxious or highly emotional. You dread Monday morning, and likely drink several glasses of wine or beer in the evening to drown out the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Epigraph
• Title page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword
• About the author
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Leap online
• Introduction
• PHASE 1 ASSESS Where are you in your career now?
• PHASE 2 ARCHITECT Where do you want to be?
• PHASE 3 ACTIVATE How will you get there?
• PHASE 4 ACCELERATE How will you leap quickly and successfully?
• A message from Michelle
• Index
• EULA