Detours still get you there

View the video here.

Are you nodding your head, thinking – oh, yeah, I’ve taken some detours!? Maybe you're like me. You’ve had more than one job in your life, maybe even more than one career (stay at home parents, anyone?).  Are you trying to figure out what’s next and you're just not sure? Maybe you’ve had one job with one company for a long time and you just have this creeping feeling that this just isn't right for you anymore.

Do you think you’ve wasted tooo much time? I doubt it. During your work life you’ve learned skills, and, you’ve acquired an encyclopedia of knowledge about what you like and don’t like in your work environment. You’ve learned about the types of people you like to work with, the kinds of projects you enjoy, how much time you want to spend at the office. Do you even like working in an office? Maybe you’ve learned project management (in its many disguises) or coding or ninja customer service skills. Maybe you’ve learned about managing people.

What happens when you decide to look for some other work? You take all of that learning and all of those skills with you. As a matter of fact, you don’t just take that info with you; you use it to figure out what you want to do next. 

So, how do people do it? Here’s a story. One of my clients has always dreamed of living and working abroad. She’s been on a pretty standard career track. She took a job in sales right after college. While she was working she met and married her husband. Then, she had a family, stayed at home, volunteered, and then re-entered the workforce after going to grad school to learn to teach. She taught for over 10 years, then decided teaching children wasn’t what she wanted to do anymore, so she left her job and called me. Together we’ve explored all types of careers – training, teaching at a wildlife park, other things. Then - whoo-hoo - she called me one day and said, “I’m going to explore teaching English to adults in other countries!!” She returned to her original dream job – her ultimate destination and she’s going for it!

How can you do the same thing? What if you think about the part of your work that you love - those things that you get so excited about you can’t wait to get home and tell somebody about it? You tell them you did all this work and you loved it, you felt alive, you didn’t even feel like you were working! Make a list of those things you love and like to do at work and use them as an outline to define your next job or career destination. 

Detours still get you there, and, you get to choose your destination.

If you’d like some help along the way, I'd love to help you use your detours to get to your next destination.

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Becky
www.beckyberrycoach.com