Redundancy – the best thing ever!

Posted on 08/02/2012 by Caroline Cameron

how to turn redundancy shock into your best opportunity yet

“You’re kidding,” I hear you say. You’d seen it coming for months, it was only a matter of time. When you’re sitting in front of your boss hearing the words, “I’m sorry, we have to let you go,” the reality is you’ve been sacked and lost your job.

Everything familiar has just evaporated – security, certainty, self confidence, your work, your work friends and the regular pay packet have all evaporated.

Before you sink into the depths of despair, fear and self-doubt, press pause….

As you move past the shock and potential anger, you’re actually at a crossroads with two choices:

Be a Victim – allow your self-confidence to nose-dive; hang onto anger and fear and wait for your next job to find you. Often at the mercy of outplacement or recruitment agencies, you wait for the phone to ring and eventually can’t even be bothered getting out of bed in the morning.

or ….

Reinvent Yourself! What if this was the best thing that ever happened to you? Rather than being the end of the world, maybe this is the start of your real life, where you are the master of your own destiny. How about standing out from the crowd and using it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be who you really are and do what you’ve always dreamt of doing?

Redundancy provides space to take stock of what’s important, identify how you want to live and work and go for it! Even if your redundancy package was less than generous, there are many ways to redesign your life, do what you want, where you want and love it.

Still not sure? Before you put a tentative toe in the life redesign water, consider the realities:

Redundancy Realities

You are now competing for a shrinking number of jobs against many others who have also been made redundant.
Even if you are lucky enough to get another job quickly, there are no guarantees of job security in the current economic climate – you could be made redundant again.
To get more work quickly, many fear driven people take the first job that comes along, without considering it carefully. While it may provide a regular pay packet, the new job could be worse than the one you’ve just left and you’re trapped. Better to have a lousy job than no job at all, right? Wrong! Once the first 6 weeks of a new job have passed, you’re often left with that sinking feeling that you’ve jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Now you’re really stuck doing something you simply don’t enjoy.
Redundancy no longer has a negative stigma. It happens to the best people in many professions and is often outside your control. If it isn’t a problem for you, it won’t be for potential future employers. In fact many of my clients have successfully negotiated a redundancy to create the financial means and time required for a complete career change.

Redeundancy Revealer

Before you join the ever-increasing queue frantically updating your CV, shooting off hundreds of futile emails to recruiters, networking old contacts or surfing Seek and CareerOne, take a few moments to ask yourself:

What am I passionate about – what’s important and what do I truly care about?
If money wasn’t an issue and I had no fear, what would I really love to do?
What would that give me that I don’t have today?
What skills, talents and knowledge do I have that I could use and develop?
What skills, experience and knowledge would I need for my ideal career?
Given the choice of where and how would I like to live, what would I choose?
What would it take to turn the possibility into a reality?

The prospect of redesigning your career and life may feel concurrently exciting and daunting. If so, feel the fear, take a deep breath and grab that pink slip! Life’s too short to be stuck in a rut and there’s never been a better time to take the plunge into doing something you’ll love.

If you’ve been made redundant and converted it into the best thing that ever happened to you, I’d love to hear your experience. Please share your story and tips in a comment below.

Carpe diem

What do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

Posted on 01/02/2012 by Caroline Cameron

a question for all adults to answer how to make it easy

If you ask any child under 10 what they want to be when they grow up, chances are you’ll get a quick, enthusiastic and certain answer.

When you put the same question to grown-ups, the answers are often vague and vexed.

Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost our ability to connect with what we really want to do. Fulfilment seems hader to find. Fear replaces courage and indecision leads us on a never-ending quest to find the ‘right’ job.

When I became a management consultant many years ago, I thought it would be the perfect way to find my dream job. Working with many different organisations would give me a ‘sneak peak’ into a wide variety of careers. I fully expected to walk into a company, see someone doing something I’d love and ‘bingo’ – there’s my answer!

The reality was very different. While I did get to check out many different jobs, industries and organisations, I mostly saw people who were struggling to find their ‘perfect’ job, just like me. Many had fallen into roles opportunistically, being in the right place at the right time, rather than consciously deciding that this was what they really wanted to do.

Fast forward 5 years and I’m now being paid to do something I love but it didn’t happen until I worked out how to find my dream job. If this sounds like you, take heart! Here are my tips for finding work that feeds your soul and puts a roof over your head.

1. Go back to your childhood!

Mining your past for vital clues is a great way to spark your imagination. What did you love doing as a child when anything was possible? Recapture your childhood dreams and notice what it was about each one that excited you.

When you were a kid (before reality set in), limitations were few which created the freedom to be whatever you dreamt. Notice how you focused on what you wanted to ‘be‘ rather than ‘do’. Hmmm, there’s another clue.

2. Stock take your career and life so far

Looking back over everything you’ve done, list the achievements and tasks you’ve really enjoyed. Even the less fulfilling experiences will provide clues about what you could and should be doing. Now write down everything you haven’t necessarily enjoyed and quite frankly, never want to do again. What was it about the positive experiences that ticked all your boxes and the negatives that left you cold?

3. What are you good at?

Inevitably, what you’re good at is probably what you enjoy most. Over the years you’ll have gained skills and knowledge that have led you to become an accomplished expert in one field or another. Even if this type of work has past its expiry date, the strengths you’ve gained in this area can be converted into transferable skills.

4. Know what difference you want to make

There’s a reason we’ve all been put on this earth and now’s the time to reveal your overall purpose. Far bigger than a single job or career, this shapes who you are in all the life roles you play. What problems do you like to solve and what really matters most to you?

Often this is more closely related to what you care about, than what you do for work. Knowing it consciously will give you far greater choice and help you make clear decisions about where to from here.

5. Get curious and explore all the options

Many of today’s jobs weren’t even invented 5 years ago and the path to fulfilling work starts with curiosity. Your answers to the previous questions will have revealed some key themes. What do your childhood dreams, career and life so far, strengths and your purpose all have in common? What do they reveal about you? Once you’ve identified these themes, start researching what’s possible.

Now you’re consciously aware of what you want to be and therefore do, career magnets (ie those roles, industries and organisations that tick your boxes) will jump out at you. Keep and open mind, imagine and explore what a ‘day in the life of…’ would be like?

The key to finding fulfilling work is to ask the right questions. Rather than saying, “I couldn’t do that because…”, ask yourself, “If this were possible, how could I make it happen?”

6.Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway

Once you’ve decided which direction you’ll take, develop a plan to bridge the gap and commit to one small step at a time. The transition to your new career will take as long as it needs to and gaining the support of family, friends and mentors will help convert your possibility into a reality.

What would a day in your perfect job look like? Life’s too short to not be doing what you love. Blow away the excuses and discover what you should be doing, now you’re ‘grown up’!

Carpe diem

3 Simple Ways to Swap Stress and Burnout for Freedom and Wellbeing

Posted on 19/01/2012 by Caroline Cameron

Loving life on the 21st Century treadmill

With the rapid introduction of mobile devices, labour-saving widgets and instant access to anything, anywhere, anytime we should be happy, right?

Wrong! As a professional coach, I work with many senior executives, managers, project teams, small business owners, entrepreneurs, stay-home mums and families. No matter where I go, they all have one thing in common – they’re all frantically busy and stressed.

Juggling challenging jobs, raising children, caring for aging parents, paying off hefty mortgages and more, the lines between work and life have become increasingly blurred. Contactable and on-call 24/7, the relentless pressures and demands are taking their toll.

Overlay an endless media stream of bad news stories, natural disasters and economic doom and gloom and it’s no wonder that life on the 21st Century treadmill is wearing us down.

Yet, ironically, there’s also never been a better time to create the kind of lifestyle you actually want. We’ve never had more opportunities, options and choices which is why now is the best time to redesign your life.

‘Hmmm, easier said than done’, I hear you say, and I understand. Flat out surviving, let alone thriving, many people simply don’t know what changes to make or how to make them to live the life they dream of. Fortunately we have more control and choice over our lives than we may think.

Here are three simple strategies to help you get started:

#1. Identify what needs to change.

Imagine your life is a house with different but connected rooms – health, relationships, career, finances etc. Take out a notepad and go for an imaginary walk through your life house, noting what parts could do with a fresh coat of paint. Identify what’s working and what’s not and jot down how you’d like each room to look.

#2. Start small and commit to action every day.

Often the smallest changes will make the biggest difference and it’s smart to start in a room that’s relatively easy to renovate. For example, if your fitness and wellbeing have been on the backburner, commit to a daily 20 minute walk and build up to regular gym sessions or whatever exercise you enjoy.

#3. Create space – decide what you’re going to ‘stop’ doing.

The hectic pace of life often leads us to unconsciously add more to every day until there are simply no hours left. Stacking your days with frantic activity is the fastest track to burnout and stress. Go through each room again and make a decision about what you’ll reduce, delegate to others or simply stop. Notice the relief and freedom that comes from removing the clutter. This creates space to focus on what’s really important.

There’ll be more simple ways to swap stress, overwhelm and burnout for freedom, choice and wellbeing in future posts.

In the meantime, what strategies do you have for making positive life changes easy? Please share them below – I’d love to hear your top tips.

Carpe diem.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Posted on 12/01/2012 by Caroline Cameron

What’s your job really costing you and is it worth it?

37 year old Mary had everything she could wish for or… did she?

Always ambitious, she’d finally scored her dream job heading up a $75m, international project for a construction company. The luring package included a generous, multiple six-figure salary, all expenses paid business class travel, ipad, iphone and a number of other glittering perks.

But it came at a cost.

Whilst taking a short break with her family over Christmas, her days were constantly interrupted by streams of urgent phone calls from her manager, anywhere between 7am and 10pm. Emails couldn’t wait so she logged on down at the beach while her beautiful, eight year old daughter Ellie played in the waves and built sandcastles on her own. Her demanding client didn’t ‘get’ the time zone difference and the sound of incoming text messages echoed through the darkness while her family slept on.

Yes, she could have turned the phone off and refused to log in – after all, she was on annual leave. However, Mary’s company had an unwritten rule and unspoken expectation that senior executives would be on call and contactable 24/7. Besides she didn’t want to let her client, manager or team down and was committed to being ‘on top of it all’.

Her husband Dave was resigned to but unhappy about the constant interruptions and their arguments were becoming more frequent. Even when she was with her family, she wasn’t really. Totally conflicted, by the time she returned to work Mary was stressed and exhausted. If nothing changes, she’ll pay the ultimate price losing her health, closest relationships and happiness.

It seems as though we’ve spent the last 10 years striving to become more efficient, mobile, contactable and indispensable – but at what cost? Latest figures from the Race Against Time Report, (National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling and AMP Financial Services) show that balancing work and family remains a big issue for working men and women, with around 40% of women and 30% of men feeling often or always rushed or pressed for time. Worse still, you probably won’t be paid or adequately compensated for ‘out of hours’ work.

It’s your life – hop into the driver’s seat and take control

If Mary’s story sounds familiar to you or someone you’re close to, maybe it’s time to take stock. Ask yourself:

What are the real expectations of the job (rather than the assumptions)?
What price am I really paying and is it worth it?
What am I prepared to do to get the job done and have a life?
What boundaries do I need to keep my job in perspective and priorities in focus?
Who can I call on to share the workload and how else could we get the job done?

Set up a meeting with your manager and team, go prepared with creative solutions and be open to new ways of working. Remember, your colleagues have a life outside work too. While work demands are ever-increasing, the pressure on companies to reduce stress and foster wellbeing is growing too. But the ultimate responsibility for yours rests with you.

Get clear about what’s important, decide what you are prepared to do (or not) and take deliberate action to make it happen.

Life’s short – it’s time to get moving and create the life you really wish for.

Carpe diem.

If you’re wanting simple ways to reclaim your life, my new book, The Great Life Redesign will show you how. It’s now available in all good bookstores and here.

An Easy Alternative to New Year’s Resolutions that Actually Works

Posted on 01/01/2012 by Caroline Cameron

a better way to achieve your goals -

New Year’s Resolutions – we all make them. Yet by mid-January many have fallen by the wayside and by the end of June we can barely remember what they were. So, what’s wrong with them and why don’t they work?

The whole logic behind New Year’s Resolutions as a way to create change is seriously flawed. Think about it….

New Year’s Day is just another day

New Year’s Day is actually no different from its 364 brothers and sisters across the year. Sure it marks the start of a new year but, so what? There’s no reason why you can’t resolve to achieve a goal or make a change on any other day of the year. In fact other days may be far better for starting a new challenge.

New Year’s Resolutions often lack the ‘how’

In the excitement leading up to New Year’s Eve, we often decide that next year will be different. Maybe you’re thinking you’ll lose 10kg, stop drinking on Wednesdays or make sure you leave work on time. Noble as these are, they’re often based on a wish that’s rarely underpinned by a solid plan to achieve them. Without a plan, a wish is like a pack of cards that collapses with the first gust of wind.

Going it Alone is tough

If you’ve ever tried to achieve a goal all by yourself, you’ll know how hard it is. We mistakenly believe that if we achieve it on our own, the satisfaction will be even greater. Yet, on your own, your noble endeavour soon becomes a struggle and it’s easier to give it away than ask for help. Besides, if you haven’t told anyone about it, you haven’t lost anything if you fail, right?

How to Set Yourself up for Success

Before your shoulders drop and you sigh with despair, here are three simple ways to create positive change and pull of the seemingly impossible this year:

#1. Free the goal from New Year and do it at the best time for you

New Year may not be the optimal time for you to embark on a challenging goal. For example, if losing 10kg is your goal, starting your diet and exercise plan during the holiday season may be setting you up for failure. Goals are easiest to achieve when your motivation is high and saboteurs (eg summer holiday partying) are low.

If the thought of going out in shorts with those 10 extra kilos is scariest right after winter, aim to get your wellbeing plan started in spring. By the time New Year comes around, you’ll be well underway, your commitment is established and the extra daylight hours will help you step up your exercise plan.

#2. Set SMART goals and work out a detailed ‘how’ plan

Converting a wish into a Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-framed goal instantly increases your chances of success. Link it to ‘why’ (the benefit and positive outcome of achieving the goal) and develop a ‘how’ plan. This should include what you’ll actually do by when and what resources you’ll need. Identify everything you can that will make it easier and put the plan up on the fridge where others will see it.

#3. Enlist the help of trusted friends.

Once you tell people what you’re going to achieve, it becomes real. If you’re going to back down or opt out, you’re going need to explain it to someone else which will create a sense of failure. Having someone to hold you accountable, encourage you to keep going and celebrate each achievement along the way will increase the satisfaction of nailing it.

Ask a friend to exercise with you, give you gentle reminders that it’s time to leave work or mind the children when you have a monthly ‘date’ night with your partner. Sharing the goal will also give you the opportunity to better support your friends and strengthen your relationships by paying back the favour.

There you have it – 3 simple ways to achieve your goals that have nothing to do with New Year’s resolutions! Be kind to yourself; take the pressure off; let down your hair, relax and have a wonderful New Year.

Here’s to a happy and successful 2012.

Carpe diem