In this episode, Sarah dives into the question: Are you having a midlife career crisis? It doesn’t have to be midlife, of course; these career crises can happen at any stage, often triggered by life events like milestone birthdays, having children, losing a loved one, or global events like the pandemic. We explore how to turn these feelings of uncertainty into a positive career opportunity with reflection, values alignment, and actionable steps.

Show Notes:

[00:01:00] Why career crises happen and what triggers them

[00:02:00] Recognizing the signs of feeling stuck or unfulfilled

[00:03:00] Acknowledging career reflection as a positive step

[00:04:00] Three powerful reflective questions to understand your current career state:

1. Where am I right now in my career — what's working and what's not?
2. What are the three accomplishments I'm most proud of in the last five years?
3. Where do I want my career to go?

[00:06:00] Checking in with your values — are they aligned with your career and company?

[00:08:00] How to assess whether your career crisis is a small glitch or a sign of a bigger shift needed

[00:09:00] Turning reflection into action: making a plan for change

[00:10:00] Creating realistic, actionable goals: 3-year, 1-year, 6-month, and 3-month plans

[00:11:00] Identifying your support system — from mentors to peers to coaches

[00:12:00] Staying motivated: How to connect with the positive emotions change will bring

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If you found this episode of Unstuck & Unstoppable helpful, please do rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

If you're kind enough to leave a review, please do let Sarah know so she can say thank you. You can always reach her at: sarah@careertreecoaching.co.uk

Remember: You are capable of more than you know. Shine brightly, lead boldly, and unlock the extraordinary potential within you.

Be unstoppable.

Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable,

the podcast for ambitious female

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leaders who want to create more impact,

income, and influence in their careers.

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feel connected to their passion

and purpose, but without

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selling out or burning out.

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I'm Sarah Archer, a leadership coach

and career strategist, helping women

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like you thrive in leadership roles

while staying true to your values.

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I'm the founder of CareerTree

Coaching and have over 15 years of

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coaching experience and significant HR

leadership experience to share with you.

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I know as a female leader it can

be hard to find time to focus

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on your career aspirations.

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The day job can be all consuming.

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Plus, no matter how senior you are,

there are always going to be times

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when you feel stuck, when you have

self doubt, or feel like an imposter.

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And that's where unstuck

and unstoppable comes in.

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Each week I'll be sharing practical

strategies, insightful interviews and

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inspiring stories to help you boost

your confidence, lead with purpose

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and achieve sustainable success.

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If you're ready to stop playing

small and unlock the incredible

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potential you have within you and feel

unstoppable, you're in the right place.

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Let's get started.

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Welcome to episode 21.

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I'm so glad you're here.

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Today we are talking about are you

having a midlife career crisis?

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Now it doesn't have to be midlife.

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These things can happen

at any point in our careers.

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And they're often

triggered by life events.

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It could be a milestone birthday.

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It could be getting married, having

a baby, buying your first house.

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It could be losing somebody close

to you, or it could be something

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bigger like the global pandemic.

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That's certainly brought in sharp focus

how we want to spend our lives, how we

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want to spend our time, having, had the

opportunity to either work from home or to

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spend more time with family and friends.

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It makes you shift and think,

okay, is this how I want to

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be living my life right now?

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It's been a good opportunity to reflect.

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I work with a lot of clients who.

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Have these moments in their careers

where they start questioning is this it?

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Am I, fulfilling my potential?

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Am I happy?

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Does my career give me meaning?

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Is it fulfilling me?

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What am I doing with my life?

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I know that these things come up

often at key points for clients.

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. How to turn this crisis feeling

into a positive career opportunity.

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Because often when we're feeling

this sense of uncertainty in our

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career it can feel quite paralyzing.

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Those questions.

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what am I doing with my life?

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Is this right for me?

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Am I getting fulfillment?

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I want can, can be quite paralyzing.

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They can make us feel stuck

not knowing where to turn.

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So I'm going to give you a little

structure today to help you take

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those feelings and understand them

and be able to take some actions

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to move yourself forward and out

of that feeling of paralysis.

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The first thing to do would be to

actually acknowledge and to give yourself

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recognition that questioning where you

are is actually good, that it's helpful.

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Because we do need to take stock of

our careers at different points in our

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lives because otherwise we can, we can

stagnate, we can end up plateauing.

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or not making progress or developing

an operation the way that we want to.

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Rather than seeing it as a negative,

I'm feeling, these feelings and

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I don't know what to do about it.

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Actually seeing it as a positive but

then being able to drill down into

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that feeling to understand what is

going on for you is super important.

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I've got three questions

that can help you.

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Avoid overthinking and what I would

encourage you to do would be to write

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down your answers to the questions.

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Obviously not now, you'll need to reflect

on them a bit but writing it down is a

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positive way to manage your thoughts . It

gets out of your head and stops it just.

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Whizzing around all the time

and you end up ruminating on it.

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The first question would be to say,

where am I right now in my career?

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What's working and what's not working?

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Because sometimes when we've got

those feelings of, am I happy?

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It might be because we feel

nothing's working in our career.

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But actually, when we examine it,

we can start to realize that

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there's only one area of our career

that isn't really working for us.

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And maybe there's quite a significant

amount of our career that is really good.

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Or it can be actually nothing

seems to feel right for me.

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Doing that reflective piece around.

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What's working, what

isn't, is super useful.

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And then the second question would be,

okay, what are the three accomplishments

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that I'm most proud of in my career,

over say the last five years?

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Now you can go further back

than that if you can't think of

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anything in the last five years.

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But if you can't think of anything

in the last five years, then that's

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giving you information as well.

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And being able to focus on the positives

of things that you're most proud of can

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help you get some perspective around your

career again of actually, Oh yeah, okay.

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Yeah.

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Maybe I need to be able to do more of.

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That thing that I see as an

accomplishment, it was really

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satisfying and fulfilling.

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And maybe it's because I haven't had

the opportunity to do that anymore.

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It's why I'm now feeling

unfulfilled and also.

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Looking at those three accomplishments

can help you spot your key strengths,

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because you can notice the themes that

might be in those accomplishments.

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. And then the third thing would be to

do a little bit of thinking about

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where do I want my career to go?

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When I imagine myself in the future,

what do I see myself doing now?

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This doesn't have to be

a big visioning thing.

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It can just be a thinking about.

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What are the things that I

really want to be doing more

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of in my career in the future?

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And that could be linked to your

accomplishments, or it could be linked

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to the what's working in your career.

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Those three reflective questions can

give you more insight into what is

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happening at the moment that's creating

this dissatisfaction in your career

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that's making you question where you are.

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And then the next thing to think

about is to check in with your values.

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Our values are super important.

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There are the things that

motivate us and drive us.

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forward in both life and work.

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And you can think about them in a career

context as being a compass that helps you

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navigate career choices and decisions.

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Understanding what it is that

drives you is really important.

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And they can be evident in

the way that you do things.

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Maybe hard work and punctuality can

be important drivers for you, or

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they could be deeper principles.

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So they could be more in tune with

concern for others, harmony with

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the environment, self reliance.

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Or you can think about some of

the common career ones, which

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can be things like autonomy,

freedom, creativity, achievement.

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family security making sure that you're

aware of what your values are and then

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you can do a check in with okay is

my current career in alignment with my

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values and also is my company that i'm

working for in alignment with my values.

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Because, sometimes our

values do shift over time.

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And maybe if you chose your career or

fell into it, which is often something

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people say to me 15 years ago, say,

your values may have changed since then.

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It might be that your career isn't in

alignment with your values anymore.

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Or it might be this one value

that is now more important to you,

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that your career doesn't doesn't

feel like it fits with anymore.

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Doing that checking with your values

can help you understand how big

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a crisis or glitch you're facing.

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Because you can think okay.

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Is it salvageable?

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So if maybe there's one aspect of my

career that doesn't align with my values,

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am I able to make some changes that

will salvage that aspect of my career?

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Or is it actually redeemable?

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Is my career no longer in alignment with

the most important values that I hold?

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Or it could be around, maybe

the company's values don't

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align with yours anymore.

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So it helps you determine the

level of change that you might need

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to make to get those questions

answered around fulfillment.

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Is it right for you?

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What will make you happy?

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What will give you more meaning?

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Then we need to think about turning

it into a career opportunity.

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And , you've done the reflection,

you've done the examination of

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what's going on in your career, but

now it's a question of planning what

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action you're going to need to take.

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That can be thinking about,

okay, do I need to be making

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quite a big change in my career?

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Am I talking about, a career change

and doing something different?

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Or is it actually a,

maybe a pivot or a shift?

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Maybe it's finding a new role

in a different organization,

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but it's the same career path.

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Or is it shifting, pivoting to

something that's aligned to what I've

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done before, but is a bit different?

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Or is this about making some

changes in my current role that

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I can make changes to, or maybe

I need to get some buy in from my

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boss or peers or, senior leadership?

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But whatever happens, you're not

going to be staying the same.

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Things will be moving, will

be shifting, will be changing.

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Because if you're staying the same, you're

going to be sitting with that feeling

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of unhappiness, unease, uncertainty.

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Recognizing actually there is

going to be some change or shift.

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needed here and recognizing that actually

that can bring a degree of anxiety.

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Because as humans, we don't tend to like

change massively, but by taking some

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action and making a plan for yourself.

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Having a plan A and maybe even a plan

B will help manage that uncertainty and

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give you a sense of agency in your career.

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Viewing this, reframing it as an

opportunity to get more fulfillment, more

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enjoyment, more meaning in your career can

help you to put that plan into action.

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Then you can think through, okay maybe

I need to think about setting myself

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some new goals in my career or a new

intention in my career and actually

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verbalizing that, writing that down you

could find it useful to think, okay,

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what's my goal for, say, three years?

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What do I want to be

different about my career?

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in the future and then

working back from that.

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Okay.

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What does that mean then for in a year?

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What's the goal that I want to be making?

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What does that then mean for six months?

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What's the goal?

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What's the goal for three months?

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Then what's the goal for one month?

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So you're breaking it down and

making it easier and more manageable

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and accessible for yourself.

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And then thinking about,

okay, who can help me?

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Because you don't have to go it

alone when you're thinking about

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change or shift or Even making a bit

of a change in your existing role.

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Thinking, okay, who can help me with this?

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Is it is it my peers?

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Is it my boss?

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Is it somebody in my organization?

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Is it a mentor?

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Is it in my industry?

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Or network?

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Family?

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Friends?

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Or even some external

support like a coach.

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Recognizing, actually, I

don't have to go it alone.

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I can get some support in this area.

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And then thinking about the first steps.

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Don't overload yourself

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it can be about, okay, my first

step is to do some more thinking

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around this area or more research.

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But keeping in mind the momentum,

the goals that you want to achieve.

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With any kind of change, whether it's

big or small, your motivation, your

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mindset is really important, really key.

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You could start to think about, okay,

I'm recognizing at the moment I'm feeling

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dissatisfied, I'm feeling uncertain,

or I'm feeling I'm happy in my career.

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And thinking about, , the change

that I want to make, what's the

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difference that change will make

to how I feel about my career?

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When I've made that change.

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So am I going to feel energized, excited?

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Am I going to feel fulfilled, happy?

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What's the feeling that I'm going

to generate through the change?

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And then being able to tap into

that feeling, because that will

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really help you motivate yourself

to take action and to continually

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tap into that desire for change,

because your career is important.

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It gives you identity.

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It gives you purpose.

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It gives you confidence.

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And so taking the time to do that

reflection, being grateful that actually

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I'm experiencing these feelings now.

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It gives me the time to really understand

what it is I need to add into my career

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or to change to get what I need from it.

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Thank you so much for listening

to this episode of the Unstuck

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and Unstoppable podcast.

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I have lots of free resources you

can access on my website, ww.career

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tree coaching.co

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uk, and I'll also put

links in the show notes.

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If you found this episode

helpful, then please subscribe

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so you don't miss the next one.

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And please do share it with a

friend and leave me a review

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and I will personally thank you.

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Remember, you're capable of more

than you know, shine brightly.

240

Lead boldly and unlock the

extraordinary potential within you.

241

Be unstoppable.