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How to Overcome Fear when Changing Your Career – by Natalie Ekberg

 

The emotion that comes across the strongest when my clients start considering a change in their career is the fear. Obviously, any change is unsettling and feeling fearful is natural.

The part I don’t quite understand is the following. How can the fear of the unknown be bigger than the frustration and exasperation experienced on a daily basis? Somebody, who was going through a messy divorce once told me: “If I stayed, I was going to die (emotionally). If I left, I had at least a shot at survival”. This has been my motto every time I faced a tough decision (and trust me, I had had a fair share of those).

Whatever your level of “readiness” is, there are few steps you can take to get yourself out of the deepest fear.

1.) Start easy. Career change, (as any other change would) should consist of structured and well thought through steps (well, at least it does during my coaching process). These steps can be tailor made to your level of courage and readiness. It is therefore important (especially if you are going through the process alone) to choose your first steps wisely. At this stage, your only objective should be to build your self-confidence to the level when you start believe that your desired career change is achievable for you. Therefore, pick the steps you can achieve easily (make a phone call, do an Internet research, etc.). Achieving those easy steps will get you out of the rut and give you a good foundation for the next phase of the process.

2.) Identify as many people as possible who have got the same job or business you are after and do a proper research on them. How did they start? What skills do they possess? How did they go about obtaining this job/business? It is always easier to fight for something when you know for certain that somebody else had achieved the same before you. You can skip a lot of mistakes by learning from such individuals; approach them and appreciate their help, you will move ahead much faster.

3.) If possible, share your plans and your desire for a new career with your friends and family. This will be helping you in two ways: the more people know about your plans, the more of them can spread the word and possibly connect you with the right people. At the same time, by talking about it, you will feel more obliged to follow through with your plans.

The above steps are aimed specifically at those who are interested in a career change but are struggling with fear and feel overwhelmed. However, they can be used by anybody who is looking to kick-start a career change (or any change for that matter). If you feel you would like to try coaching to have more support on your journey, get in touch : [email protected]

Copyright: LB Coaching 2013

This article provided by Natalie Ekberg, http://lbcareercoaching.com/

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