Take Bob who was living in the grip of one such “truth” when I began working with him.

A young, talented and ambitious accountant, he’d recently been disappointed to find that he hadn’t even been nominated for the promotion process that would eventually allow him to apply for partnership. But the icing on the cake was the following advice dished out to him by his HR Director:

“You can’t have a career and a good work life balance,”

When I asked him to help me understand, he shared that he wanted to have a life, as much as he wanted to have a career. He was no slouch. He’d work the hours to finish audits on time, and he’d conduct after-hours client review meetings no problem. But when the pressure was off, he’d leave work at six and spend his evenings with his wife and two children, instead of doing the politically required thing of staying at his desk.

This went against the grain for his firm. So, if he wanted a career there he was going to have to choose between two parts of him that he did not want to experience as ever being in conflict.

Reframe The Belief

The first step in our coaching work was to challenge the assumption in the belief.

“Is it true that one cannot have a career and a rich life beyond it?” I asked.

As we talked it through, it became obvious that, while it was true of his company, he could think of lots of other people in his life and in the public eye who had good lives and good careers.

Take Back The Power

Next up was for Bob to consider whose picture of a professional life he was going to follow: his own or his firm’s.

In the former, Bob himself could set goals for himself and decide what was and wasn’t okay for him. In the latter, he’d hand over much of his power to his firm. They’d decide what was appropriate, and Bob would moderate himself to fit in.

He decided that constantly measuring himself against some external standard, as he had been until that point, was no longer for him. Deciding to put himself in the driving seat of his own career allowed him to feel much more confident and resourceful.

Can You Get What You Want Here?

He decided to test out his current firm by having a further conversation with the HRD about how much latitude there actually was on worklife issues. But he returned to me disappointed.

“The partnership is a club,” the HRD had said. “It may say it values worklife balance, but really it expects complete loyalty. Either you’re happy to play by the rules or you’re not.”

We looked at the kind of club this partnership actually was and whether it was one of which Bob really wanted to be a member. He reflected on the phenomenal professionalism on the one hand; on the other he spoke of the failed marriages, the confirmed singletons, the relationships that appeared to exist purely on convenience. He started to square up to the possibility that this was not a club to which he would willingly belong.

Where Can You Get It?

With my support, he then went off and began having tentative chats with people in his professional network. He was trying to get a feel for how life was in other accountancy and professional service firms. Many of them seemed to have similar cultures. But some of the mid-sized, more entrepreneurial ones appeared more open to the possibility that their people might want to have more in their lives than work.

Finally, he was offered and accepted a senior management role for a smaller firm, with a fast-track route to partnership based on how things mutually worked out.

The last time I spoke to him he’d just been promoted, and was delighted.

Bob’s is just one example of how career rules can work against individuals, and how it’s possible, by getting clear of what’s true for you, to find a better fit.

What career rules might you be unduly struggling against? How might using Bob’s example free you up?

photo credit: Aerokev

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Corporate Concept

The term emerged in the 1990s, coined by corporations responding to the challenge of increasing workplace stress on the one hand, and greater social need on the other. “Talent”, as they label the smart folks whose skills keep the company productive, were looking not just to have careers, but to be able to be parents and carers too. Heck, some of that “talent” even wanted to spend some of their lives completely away from work.

And so benefits like flexible working arrangements, childcare, and sabbaticals became more prevalent, alongside in-house initiatives like gyms and stress management training.

These undoubtedly help make a lot of people’s lives better. But it’s important as an individual to know that whether they help you or not, their primary motive is not your welfare, but the protection of the bottom line.

Work vs Life

Implicit in the corporate concept is that work and life are different and separate. Worse, they stand against one another as two values – the only two values – competing for your time and energy.

If you find yourself going a little crazy juggling your workload with all you have to do outside, there’s no concept that the picture could be wrong. Or that things within it could need a fundamental rethink. Including how liveable your job actually is.

It all boils down to these two simple, logical and therefore hypothetically manageable parts: work and life.

Your Whole Life

Coaching and writing for people around work life balance, I have a different picture. Because my interest is in you, I want to work with and talk to all of who you are.

Of course work is a key part of your life and of helping give a sense of identity. But it needs to be seen as an integral part of you. Just as your family, friends, special relationship, sports and hobbies, and spirituality are not things you should leave at the office reception desk.

What Do You Need?

My intention in writing this is not to make you more cynical of corporations. They are important in the whole, bigger work life picture.

What I am suggesting is that you don’t get sucked into framing something in a way that doesn’t jive with your nature.

Take your power back. Ask yourself what’s important from the perspective of your whole life. Can your company’s work life balance ethos and programs support you? If they can, brilliant. Either way, simply avoid being cast in a mould that is not of your making.

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photo credit: DaveBleasdale

According to a recent survey, 40% of professionals are considering going in search of a new job when they get back from their summer vacation. They’re battle weary after months of slogging it out in positions where their promotion prospects are disappearing, their bosses aren’t living espoused company values, and their bonuses are being cut.

It’s not surprising news. I’m hearing all the time from clients and friends just how much they want to quit. I’ve written elsewhere about being careful about not rushing to escape.

But how do you know when it really is time to go? Here are 7 signs that indicate the end is, indeed, in sight.

• You dislike what you’re doing. You’ve got to the point where you’re more than just bored, or not enjoying what you do. It’s becoming an active hatred. You can feel it sitting on you like a lead weight on your heart. It’s affecting your whole outlook on life.
• You feel no connection with your boss or colleagues. If you ever trusted your boss, that’s gone never to return. And, there’s no-one at work you can really call your friend.
• You’d really rather stay in bed. You’re struggling to get up in the morning, and it’s an effort to get yourself together for your day.
• You can never get on top of your workload. No matter how hard you try, you never feel that you’re getting on top of things. You might just about get there when the goal posts change again and you’re back to square one.
• You’re constantly ill. Despite whatever you do to de-stress, you’ve always got some kind of minor health problem going on. Whether it’s a cold, flu, whatever, you also notice these things becoming more difficult to shrug off and recover from.
• You’re living for weekends and holidays. The benefits of them, however, last only a few days before you feel that you’ve never been away.
• You’ve tried your damnedest to make things better. You’re a pro. You’ve read all the advice in this and other blogs about how to hack your career and you’ve applied it all religiously. Without success. You’re done with trying.

Sometimes the best thing to do is walk away. Some companies are just not for you. Don’t waste your energy and make yourself chronically ill trying to force fit yourself to a scenario that was never for you.

Sure, there are pragmatic considerations around how you get yourself out, what you subsequently do, and how you finance yourself in the process. It may take you time, but if it’s right to go, do yourself a favor and make that a firm decision. That’s step one. The rest will follow. And you’ll wonder why you slogged it out for so long!

If you’re a professional looking to have a much more fulfilling relationship with your work, sign up for our RSS updates and never miss an article again.

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On top of that, the bogey man of today’s employment market can be the all pervading fear factor, threatening to annihilate you if you dare reassert some control.

Fortunately, there are some simple, yet effective, reframes you can do that allow you to see things in a more self-supporting way.

The following paragraphs give you a step-by-step process to getting your career back on track.

1. Step away from the victim role

   Unfair things shouldn’t happen to good people. But they do.

   I see it all the time at the moment. Talented professionals falling foul of politics around promotion processes; loyal workers expected to put up with unilateral changes to their employment conditions; team stars becoming scapegoats because they chose to speak out against unhealthy dynamics.

   A degree of positive venting about whatever happened is normal and healthy. But guard against ongoing bitching to anyone in your professional network. The sad truth is that it does you more harm than the company that has wronged you.

   You absolutely must decide to take your power back from the situation and move on.

   That mindset switch of itself jolts you from being victim, to being resourceful.

2. Challenge your assumptions about the situation

   A guy I coached recently was distraught when he not only failed a partnership board but was told never to darken its doors again. And, yes, his bosses had been entirely remiss in putting him forward without having supported and mentored him. But he’d naively gone through the process believing he’d get a coveted share in the company purely on merit. He hadn’t considered the need to show an ability to understand company politics, or to have networked with the decision makers ahead of the board.

   Companies are not fair places. They are business institutions, and play by business rules. You are completely dispensable to them, whether they want you to believe that or not.

   Look yourself in the mirror and ask what faulty beliefs you’ve been holding about the situation in which you find yourself. See how hanging onto those assumptions is keeping you stuck. Decide what you need to believe instead.

3. Ask yourself how okay things are for you

   Once you’ve got yourself into a more rational mindset about things, it’s time to confront whether – or not – you’re prepared to accommodate the injustice that’s been served up to you. Instead of imagining that you have to put up and shut up,  see instead the choice you have.

   How okay is it really for you to accept what’s been left with you? If you’re happy to live with the situation – if you can see it opportunity in it and make it work for you – that’s one thing. But, if it has crossed a fundamental boundary for you, you need to acknowledge that to yourself.

   You are not obliged to make yourself crazy trying to justify to yourself that something’s okay when it is not.

4. Explore your move-forward options

   Coming to this choice point has allowed you to get considerable energy back. The next step then is around how you direct that into action that allows you to move on positively.

   What do you want for yourself now? How are you going to achieve that?

   If you’ve decided that for now you’re going to see the lesson in what’s happened and stick around where you are, what’s in that for you? With that in mind, how are you going to re-engage?

   If you’ve chosen that what’s happened is insurmountable, what are you going to do to take yourself positively out of your current situation? What scenarios are open and fruitful that are obvious? What are the more blue sky and out there opportunities that excite you? What small experiments can you make that allow you to test things out while keeping your options open?

Use these four steps to get your passion for your career back on track

There’s no doubting the enthusiasm for work and life you can get from thinking of yourself as a new work pioneer. But sometimes the wheels come off the track. The way back is through seeing the opportunity in the situation using the steps above. Follow them and you’re work life will once more be rocking.

So, where will these steps take you? What has resonated with you most here, and how can you use this thinking to up the ante on your working life?

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

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Their hearts tell them they’d love to buy in to the New Work Pioneer ethos.

But to a greater or lesser degree the fear of becoming the proverbial bag lady brings them back to doing what they know how to in this situation: get on the market and hustle for another of the same kind of job.

They can pay attention to this “doing what you love” stuff in the future. When things are sorted. When they feel more secure and stable.

You know how it is.

And with more redundancies looming here in the UK, at least in the public sector, even just getting more of the same is not the cakewalk it once was. Here are a few tips for staying street-savvy, without giving your soul over to the whims of the economy.

1. Don’t panic

   Easier to say than to do, perhaps. But, seriously, panic drives you to take action and make decisions that you may regret later. That’s because, when we’re anxious, we’re cut off from the most confident, resourceful parts of ourselves.

   So, first things first, do what you need to in order to nail down key concerns.

   The biggest one is usually money. Face this fear head-on, and early on. Figure out what you need and what you want, budget and keep a tight reign on things. If you need to talk to banks about refinancing or having mortgage payment holidays or whatever, do it proactively.

   Knowing that you’re in control of your money, rather than it being in control of you will give you personal and psychological breathing space.

2. Listen to your heart and your head

   It’s tempting to let your head rule at times when work is tricky. It can definitely help you figure things out and do things cleverly. But it won’t always take account of your intuitions or feelings. They need attention too.

   What do you really, really want to do in this situation? What opportunities do you see that your logical mind wants you to ignore? What does your gut tell you about interviews you’ve gone for, or not? What if you paid attention? Where would that take you?

   Now, how might you use your mind to logic the next steps?

3. Focus on what you can do

   There’s a lot of “can’t” around at the moment. Can’t work. Can’t afford. Can’t progress. What if you shift your attention off of these things and onto where you can direct your energy ?

   Networking is a pretty obvious one. You can do this on or offline. And, since things seem to be changing around you anyway, what do you have to lose by pushing the barriers and experimenting with new networks or new media that you haven’t tried before?

   Updating your skills is another. As, indeed, is taking them in a completely different direction again. Money doesn’t need to be an obstacle. There’s a ton of resource online and either free or relatively inexpensive.

   If you’re looking for a similar job, get yourself the smartest CV and the best support you can buy to position yourself well in a crowded market. Julie Walraven is a fabulous resource on both fronts.

   And if you really do want to use this opportunity for bigger change, find yourself a coach that understands this space and invest in your own transformation.

4. Be pragmatic

   I’m seeing folks take months right now to find work they are happy with. It all depends on what level you’re at, how much you’re earning, and how much networking you’re prepared to do for yourself.

   Meantime, you may still want to put cash in the bank.

   I’m counselling people to take a long term view of things now, separating out what they need to do to earn the money to support themselves, from finding work that they will be happy with ongoing.

   That could look like choosing to take a job that you know is a compromise of some sort for you in the short term, but using it as leverage for future endeavour.

   Or taking interim contracts, if you can find them, to tide you over.

   The trick comes in making these decisions consciously and tactically. You do not need to imagine that a short term solution defines you. It doesn’t. It just keeps your spirit alive in the longer term.

5. Don’t beat yourself up

   Finding paths forward in the current economy is fraught with challenge and set-back. Clients tell me of writing emails for jobs and never getting response. Or, of headhunters who were gushing and warm in getting them to interview never following up with the outcome. It shouldn’t be like this, but sadly, sometimes it is.

   Don’t, whatever you do, take it personally. It’s really not about you.

Times are tough, but keep the faith. Keep your sense of direction and take action you can believe in. That’s what’s going to see you through.

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

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Today I’m delighted to welcome the super-talented Tara Sophia Mohr. Her beautiful piece challenges us to consider what our real work is – and how we can do it, irrespective of what job we might currently be doing.

Work Worthy of You

There you are. You. A sacred human being, with your particular form of brilliance. It may be a form of brilliance that school teachers knew how to recognize, and they at school could assess, but probably not. It may be a form of brilliance that your parents saw and spoke to you about, probably not. But don’t be confused, your unique brilliance resides within you, and the world needs it.

Then there is your heart, your desire to create something of value, something that heals or enriches or improves the world. There is your desire to be part of something good, something ethical, something meaningful.

Work can be about all of this. Work can be the experience that uses your gifts and fulfills your desire for contribution. Work can be the ultimate expression of what you came here, to this planet, to do. Work can be worthy of the sacredness of you.

The Mind Baggage

Here comes the mind-baggage, the voice that rushes in to say, “but I could never make a living doing something that I love.” The belief that you could never be more than an easily exchangeable part in the vast economic machine. There are all the fears – of failing if you go your own way, of what other people will think, of the risks of dropping out of the mainstream way. There is the fear of ending up starving on the street.

It is up to each of us to question these fears – are they true? Are they guiding you in a wise way? Do they reflect a realistic assessment of risk? Are they voices of reason, or simply voices of fear?

If you set all those fears aside, place them outside the chamber of your thinking, what do you see now, about what you want? What do you see now about what is possible?

Your Job vs. Your Real Work

In my work with coaching clients, we make a distinction between their jobs and their real work. Their jobs are whatever they are doing to earn income at the moment.

Their real work is what they feel called to do, the work that feels right in the soul. It’s the work that ignites their passion and releases the adrenalin in their veins. It’s the work that makes life feel more alive and colorful, yet more calm and balanced, all at the same time. It’s the work that makes them feel stronger, that makes them feel like themselves.

I stand for this: everyone can do their real work – no matter what their job at the moment. Everyone has the opportunity to begin doing their real work – in some way – no matter what their external circumstances — financial constraints, family responsibilities, lack of time.

If your real work is protecting the environment and your job is trading stocks, you can do your real work through volunteering, political action, and philanthropy. If your real work is teaching music and your job is web design, you can teach music to a person in your community, once a week.

It’s the self-sabotaging voice within us that makes it either-or, black and white. That part of us loves the melodramatic idea that you had to give up your passion long ago, that there is just no way to keep it alive now that you have a mortgage, family, demanding job…you fill in the blank. That part of us sees us as stuck, powerless victims when it comes to creating fulfilling work.

Why? Because doing our real work is scary. It’s real. It’s emotional. It’s vulnerable. It evokes to fear to start claiming our real lives, to start living more authentically, so a part of us tries to keep us safe in the known status-quo.

But you are bigger than that, and smarter than that, so notice the fear, notice the resistance, and start doing your real work, in some manageable, doable way.

You’ll find that the joy and energy you get from doing your real work is so big and rich and powerful that even small amounts of time spent on it will change your life.

Create the Relationship Between Your Job and Your Real Work

As you do your real work more and more, you get to decide: what do you want the relationship between your job and your real work to be? They can be one and the same: you can make your real work also the thing you do for income. Or they can remain separate. Or they can overlap somewhat, but not entirely. You get to decide.

At different stages of our lives, and based on our different personalities and needs, different solutions work. For example, Carol’s real work is helping struggling youth, and she thinks one day, maybe after her kids have left the nest, she’d like her job to be in that field. For now, she really appreciates a less demanding, moderately fulfilling job that allows her flexibility and lots of time with her family. For the time being, she works with youth organizations as a volunteer and board member, and she loves it. Mark, another client, recently decided that it just wasn’t fulfilling enough for him to keep his job and his real work separate. He made a major career change and started a finance business run in a socially responsible way, pursuing his real work calling.

You get to decide what you want the relationship between your job and your real work to be, but there is no excuse for turning your back on your real work.

Your real work will reduce stress and resentment and pessimism in you, and it will bring more humor, lightness of spirit, and emotional balance into your life. It will bring more meaning and vitality into your daily existence. And it will give the world what the world is so thirsty for – human beings showing up in their full vitality to contribute for the good.

Tara Sophia Mohr is a writer, coach, and personal growth teacher. She writes the blog Wise Living. You can receive her free Goals Guide, “Turning Your Goals Upside Down and Inside Out (To Get What You Really Want)” by clicking here.

photo credit: h.koppdelaney

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As the class started, I had a completely unimpeded view of her posture; how she was lifting her weights; and how she was moving in time with the music. Somewhere in my peripheral vision was the mirror’s reflection of the rest of the class. For sure, some of them were pretty fit and pretty good. But many hadn’t quite got the technique right, or were moving out of time with the music. Still, I didn’t have to be put off by any inaccurate postures or discordant tempos, because I could screen it out and look straight ahead to the teacher in front of me, and her model of what good exercising looked like.

As with most things I want to do well in life, I went straight to the person from whom I could learn the most, the best, and the fastest.

Looking back on corporate jobs I’ve done, the ones I most enjoyed were those where I aligned myself to people who were great leaders, both of people and of their business discipline. And as I’ve learned how to coach well; deepened my skills in psychology; and cracked the use of social media, I’ve always sought out people who were already at the top of their game and who stood out from the crowd of those who would imitate them.

In other words, I’ve stood next to the masters.

There are many imitations out there. Lots of people who herd together following the movements of those closest them, fooling themselves that that’s mastery. And it’s not like those people don’t have their followers, because they do. But ultimately there are a lot of echoes in our whole human system, because being an echo is safe.

It’s much more difficult to step away way from people who would be good and put yourself in the position of deciding not to leave the development of your mastery to chance.

In days gone by there was a way to develop oneself to the best of one’s abilities. It was called apprenticeship. A fledgling artist or crafts person would pay money to sit alongside the masters of their time and mimic their skill.

When the apprentice could easily reproduce what the master could do it was time for her to put her learning to the service of expressing her own art or craft. Thus her own journey to mastery began.

Now, I’m not suggesting you formally apprentice yourself to anyone. But the model of identifying the best person you can learn from, and actively getting alongside them is a useful one if you have the vision of being at the top of your game in any field.

Indeed, you may want to identify several masters from whom you can perfect distinct aspects of your craft.

Think about it: what does mastery mean to you? Who are your masters? What’s stopping you from standing more closely to them?

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Today I’m delighted to welcome Scot Herrick to the blog to tell us a little about himself, and in particular his new book, “I’ve Landed My Dream Job–Now What???”

Scot, tell us a bit about you.

Christine, thanks for this opportunity! In the business world, I’m the Principal of CubeRules.com and the author of “I’ve Landed My Dream Job—Now What???” I have a long history of management and individual contributor positions in Fortune 100 sized companies. Outside of the business world, I’m happily married to Kate and father to my stepson.

What inspired you to create your blog, Cube Rules?

Most of the business blogs out there focus on management or leadership or processes or some methodology (Lean, Six Sigma). Few focus on the professional individual, toiling away in the corporate cubicle, who wants to do a great job, enjoy doing the work and knowing how to best manage their work.

There are few tools to help them. Plus much of the advice out there (“10 ways to prevent a layoff!” “Use your resume to get the job!”) is simply not accurate from my managerial experience. Cube Rules was meant to fill this huge gap.

Who should be reading Cube Rules and why?

One of the great things you talk about here at A Different Kind of Work is the corporate experience you want to have as an individual. Your work focuses on an individual’s needs to match the work to the person. Cube Rules, on the other hand, focuses on the tactical ways to implement that great corporate experience on the job.

Cube Rules is about what it takes to land the job, be successful on the job, and have a satisfying career. So the articles and products provide the “nuts and bolts” ways of going about doing just that.

I’ve managed hundreds of individuals and very few know – and do – what is needed for success on the job beyond their job skills. Cube Rules can give a person the knowledge and tools to navigate the workplace.

How did your book come about?

It came about because of the same lack of focus on the individual when starting a new job. Most books talk about starting a new job from the “leadership” level – what to do the first 100 days in running a company, how to evaluate a board of directors and all that sort of stuff.

If you look for what it takes a professional individual working in a corporate cubicle to do when starting a job, you don’t find much. Except, of course, “you MUST be successful in the first 30 days on the job. Or else!” So what does “successful” mean? The book tells you how to go about getting to success.

What makes you believe that the first 30 days of a new job need such focus?

I’ll give you a great, true example. A company interviews candidates for a job and then ranks the candidates from one through whatever. They offer the first ranked candidate the job. The candidate makes one mistake – or is perceived as not getting how to do the work – and the company fires the candidate days into the job and offers it to the next ranked candidate on the list. When they find the perfect candidate, they stop the firing. The killer is that the person losing the job has to fight for unemployment because they were terminated “with cause…”

Now, while true, that’s extreme. But companies believe they need success from their new hires right out of the gate. You, starting a new job, need to get into the work and quickly integrate into the corporate culture. Otherwise, you risk losing the job or getting labeled as an “average” employee and having to break those perceptions. Once those perceptions are set, they are very hard to break.

If there was one piece of advice you’d highlight in particular from the book, what would it be and why?

I’ll provide two. One tactical piece of advice: Before you start the job, I ask that you determine how long your new job will last. Which is counterintuitive because you haven’t even started the job yet. But, no job lasts forever. Based on what you know before you start, will the job last two years before you are bored or three years before you are ready for a promotion, or eighteen months before the ending of the project…whatever. How long will the job last and why?

At the end of the 30-days, and armed with all the information you have found from your work, I ask that you re-evaluate how long the position will last. It will be a consistently moving target, of course, but when the time frame for finding a new job matches up with how long you think your current job will last, you need to start looking for a new gig.

Second, an attitude: the job has to be right for the way you work. The advice I give for the first 30 days is not only about you being successful in the new job for the company, but also determining if the job is right for you. The sooner you know the answer to the job being right for you, the sooner you can make adjustments in your approach to match the job to your needs.

The book is aimed at individuals. Shouldn’t businesses be paying attention to it to?

Yes, but most focus on simple “onboarding” where they ensure you have access to company systems and corporate benefits. They don’t look at all if the job is right for you and rarely focus on what management needs to do to incorporate your skills to help the company.

In fact, the whole onboarding process is something to evaluate about how the company treats employees. It is the first “company process” you encounter and how well that process is executed is your first hint about the management culture. I once started at a company where it took five weeks to get a computer so I could do my work. What does that tell you about management focus and execution?

I take the approach that if you are searching for the right job to match up with the right corporate experience you want to have, you’ll need to make the effort to ensure you learn about the work, culture, and management, plus determine if the job is also right for helping you do your best work.

What’s next on your agenda?

One of the actions I suggest in the book to do is a structured weekly review about the new job and what you should learn during the week (even if it takes more than a week!). I’m building some forms that help provide that structure. Plus, I’m working on a project that will hopefully help more people be successful in their job, not just when starting a new job.

What feedback would you like from readers here?

I’d love to hear what worked for you during the first 30 days of starting a new job, what didn’t work for you and how you solved what didn’t work for you. And, hey, I’ll answer questions about landing a job, starting a new job, or how to deal with the workplace as well.

And thanks again, Christine, for the opportunity. The work you are doing with the New Work Pioneer and building the right corporate experience for each person is really critical right now. Your advice in this area is a welcome addition to help people survive – and thrive – in the workplace.

If you’d like to follow Scot, you can do so on Twitter @scotherrick.

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Photo credit: Steven Durbin Photography

If there’s one word I’ve heard clients use a lot recently, it’s the word reality.

It has come up as they’ve talked about what’s happening in their businesses right now. Because some of them are once more finding their pipelines to be a little short on flow. After a few months of order books starting to fill up again, they’re having another moment when the phones aren’t ringing.

Maybe it’s buyer uncertainty around how the new Cameron-Clegg coalition will pan out. Or market panic about the Eurozone crisis.

Whatever its cause, the return of relative silence brings back gut-wrenching, immobilising fear.

In coaching, clients want to put aside what they suddenly see as being the terribly indulgent work they’ve been doing on themselves.

“Right now I have to get back to reality,” they say.

Sometimes their tone is punishing. As if by supporting their personal development I’ve somehow lead them astray and am to blame for the stasis in their business development.

When I ask what getting back to reality looks like, they express different, pressing coaching needs.

“I’ve never really had to market myself before. Help me get my head round that.”

“I need to build my confidence in going into completely new networking situations.”

“Help me get over my fear of proactively calling people.”

These are the issues that are alive for them, and so we’ll go there. And yet I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t give voice to the panic that I intuit. Or question the clinging after control that I feel.

My clients are successful people in their own regard, irrespective of what hand life is currently dealing them. Whether they’re prepared to say so or not, they experience themselves as having much to lose. It’s not just money. It’s their reputation that’s at stake. Their power and influence. Their perceived competitive position versus peers and colleagues.

What has all the effort been for, if it can just all be swept away?

One guy told me of a dream he’d had. A nightmare, really. He’d been at the top of a mountain, and watched on, horrified, as a climber on an adjoining peak accidentally slipped on rubble and fell freely to certain death.

You don’t have to be an analyst to figure that one.

But such conversation takes coaching to a different place again. People want to move forward. At the same time they feel the weight of their own fears. Which need do they address?

Surely, I argue, the answer has to be both?

By all means, explore what you can do differently to open up your business-getting options. Look at your offering. Address your marketing weaknesses.

But don’t make the mistake of cutting off from yourself in the process. Don’t think that self-development is something you do after the crisis has passed.

Facing things in this way allows new questions to emerge:

• What responsibility might you be inappropriately shouldering for the current situation?
• What deep down failing do you fear is about to be unmasked?
• Who are you without your professional reputation and business persona?
• What gives your life meaning beyond this profession; this portfolio?

Life and nature bring times of uncertainty and silence. What if this lull was a normal, natural state of affairs? What qualities and resources in you, other than your cleverness and control, is it calling you to develop?

This is the opportunity in the silence: the chance to integrate; the chance to listen to your own soul.

Great, meaningful, deeply significant work happens when you really marinate in the meantime. It is not a distraction from the creative process, it is the creative process.

Pam Slim, Escape From Cubicle Nation

What silences have you faced recently? What opportunities have you allowed them to mean for you?

Related posts:

1. What If There IS No Work?
2. 7 Warning Signs That It’s Time To Quit Your Job
3. 4 Reframes To Get Your Career Groove Back

If you’ve been reading this series, you’ll know I call this community The New Work Pioneers.

And so far we’ve talked about what prompts them to take a different tack; how they think differently about success; the hallmark milestones of their journey; and why they really bother.

But what really, really sets successful New Work Pioneers apart from those who’d aspire to this path, but fall short?

Self direction

Successful New Work Pioneers see themselves as powerful agents in setting and steering the course of their own lives.

In psychology the jargon is that they have an internal locus of control. This means that on balance they attribute their successes to their own effort, and failures to more variable, often external factors. Which allows them to keep moving forward self-assuredly.

Positive outlook

Adrian Swinscoe wrote earlier this week about optimism. People who are successful in carving out different ways of working and living tend to adopt a positive lens in looking at the world.

They’re no Pollyannas. Nor do they feel the need to adopt any inauthentic persona of the always upbeat person.

They have a realistic view of the world. And it’s one that sees the good; the possibilities and opportunities in each situation.

Life goals

Goals give shape, purpose and direction to life. Successful New Work Pioneers set themselves life goals which they actively pursue. If they’re in a committed relationship, they’ll often set these goals jointly with their partners.

Interestingly, while their goals are often explicit about the material and practical things they want from life, the goals to which they give most attention are those they can imbue with meaning and purpose. For example, they may think of how their work ambitions foster the positive development of their target market; or of how their desire for children will enrich their experience of family.

The deep sense of positive emotional engagement they make with these goals gives them an energy that sustains them.

Flexibility

Even if goals create a map, the terrain once you reach it can look quite different. Successful New Work Pioneers understand this and are not too wedded to a fixed sense of themselves, or of the world. They take bumps in the road as experiences they can learn from.

They don’t allow themselves to be so controlling about things that they get stuck in their own minutiae.

Self knowledge

Smart New Work Pioneers have clocked the importance of understanding themselves. They tend to be committed to their own personal development, seeing it as a life-long pursuit.

Many of them will have an intimate awareness of their personal values and will see how putting them positively into practice not only makes them happy, but gets them great results.

And they’ll unfathom any limiting beliefs they’re holding onto that may threaten to derail them.

Engaging with others

Successful off-piste career folks take satisfaction in good connections with others. Whether it’s in the context of a special love-relationship; with children; with family and friends; or with colleagues, they value the sense of themselves they get from being intimately engaged. The energy they get from this boosts them and supports their onward journey. Particularly if those relationships are mutually respectful and supportive.

Meaning at work

The happiest New Work Pioneers are those who find flow experiences in work. Of course, it helps if they naturally love what they do. But for many that’s not where they’re at. At least not yet.

Still, successful ones will find meaning in whatever form of work they’re doing. Contributing to something that’s bigger than them. Giving something back. Making a difference.

With a felt-sense of purpose, work can feel inspiring, which in turn can fuel the New Work Pioneers endeavours.

Making the most of most things

Sometimes times are good. Sometimes they’re bad. Sometimes just so. Being a New Work Pioneer isn’t a recipe for an incident-free life. Still, the successful ones are those who tend to take life as it comes and make the most of all situations. This equanimity; the finding of satisfaction in what is, allows them just to be.

And just being is in essence what they are seeking to achieve.

So, does this resonate with you? What strategies do you adopt to keep yourself on a different path?

Finally, thanks to the community of readers that has been reading these posts each week over the last couple of months. I really appreciate your having stuck with the series. Now for the task of turning it all into an eBook!If you don’t want to miss out, subscribe for regular updates here!

Photo credit: Steven Durbin Photography

Related posts:

1. Introducing The Manifesto For New Work Pioneers
2. Work life change: event or journey?
3. New Work Pioneers Reframe Success