Career Makeover

Recently, ‘Extreme Makeover’ reality TV programmes have taken over our television sets and many of us are transfixed by the concept of a complete cosmetic overall of a person or a house within mere days or weeks. The transformation happens so quickly and profoundly that it hardly seems believable. But what about things less concrete and cosmetic, like one’s career. Can we give our careers an ‘extreme makeover’??

As readily as some people can pinpoint all the things they don’t like about their body (i.e their nose, their stomach) other people can pinpoint all the things they don’t like about their career (i.e their working conditions, a lack of development opportunities).

But whereas many people are willing to spend thousands of dollars redesigning their body’s, people are often much more reluctant to invest money into making over their careers. For some reason many people seem to think that ‘fixing the outside’ is easier than ‘fixing the inside’.

However, dissatisfaction generally feels the same and has the same impact on your quality of life, regardless of whether you are dissatisfied with your physical appearance or with your career. Just as you can have a picture of your ideal body to aspire to, you can also have a picture of your ideal career to aspire to. You can accentuate the parts that you want to make the most of and minimise the parts that you want to be less prominent.

While the extreme makeovers on TV typically involve a transformation during several hours of unconsciousness, a career makeover is focused on transforming your career through the process of increasing your consciousness, with you as your own ‘surgeon’ (you may like to seek the guidance of a career coach as a ‘co-surgeon’, to make sure you don’t sever any vital nerves!).

Exercises aimed at enhancing your awareness of your talents, motivators, values, and preferences help to define what your ideal career would look like and provide a platform from which the transformation can begin.

Once you have a clear picture of what you want, you can begin creating a step-by-step plan of how you will achieve what you want in your career, including anticipating any potential obstacles and how to overcome them.

A career coach can guide you through this process and keep you moving forward, helping you to create certainty about your next move as well as giving you the support and fostering the skills you need to make it happen. Like a cosmetic extreme makeover there may be some ‘pain’ and ‘healing’ involved, however the end result can give you the attractive career you’ve always wanted.

For more information about Career Analysts careerMAKEOVER coaching programmes contact anne@careeranalysts.co.nz, or phone (09) 356 9758. For a D.I.Y CareerMakover, try our online career assessment centre at www.careeranalysts.co.nz !!! (Through the ‘Career Centre’ link on our homepage)