Dr. Bednarski coaches clients to assess their values and to list the five things that matter most to them in their lives: for example, financial security, creativity, helping other people, location, work/home balance, using intuitive skills. Try interviewing your close friends or spouse to better understand what you’re really all about. Dr. Bednarski and other experts recommend using instruments such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (found at mbticomplete.com) to facilitate career decision-making and assess career mobility.
The questions you need to ask yourself include: What do you love? What is your skills set? Where do you have a skills gap? How much money do you need to make? What sorts of flexible arrangements do you need? Once you have a clearer vision of what you want, the path will begin to emerge.
Amp up your ego
If you want people to believe in you, first you have to believe in yourself. Pour yourself a cup of tea (or a martini), get comfortable, and write down all your accomplishments. Seeing right there in black and white how capable you are just might motivate you to take the leap, whether that means making a strategic move in the same industry or jumping to another field entirely. A teacher, for example, may have excellent managerial skills from years of keeping a room full of first graders on task. A marketing manager may have what it takes to run a nonprofit because she can raise funds by highlighting the organization’s strengths.
Focus on what you have to offer, not on what you don’t
Include any volunteer or community work you’ve been doing—or even the coordination it takes to get everyone in the family where they’re going on a tight schedule.
To get the job you want, you need to conquer your insecurities, transform your thinking, tailor your behavior, and demand the professional recognition you deserve, says Rebecca
Shambaugh, author of It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor. “It’s incumbent on women to look beneath their own feet to see what behaviors, assumptions, or beliefs they have that may be self-limiting or keeping them from achieving their own career goals,” she says. Gaps in your skills set? Fill them in. Take courses at a local college or online university and immerse yourself in the world you want to join. Attend conferences; speak with others in the field; check the Web and read trade journals. Find a mentor who’s doing a job similar to what you’d like to do, suggests Shambaugh. “If you want to be CFO of your organization and you’re not quite there, find a mentor and ask her what she did to get there,” she says. “Set up an action plan. You’ll be shocked by how empowered you feel.”
