Career Pivot Stalled?

My client was procrastinating on her career pivot. A pivot, a career dream, that she really wanted by the way.

When I asked her why she thought she wasn’t taking action, she said it was because she feels scared and overwhelmed by the process, shame about her perceived stalled career and below-market income, and guilt about some of her career choices that she believes will keep her getting work she is excited about.

No wonder she was procrastinating. Who wants to walk into fear, overwhelm, shame, and guilt?

I explained to her that the idea of her career change was creating a normal, human fear response.

She was freezing – doing nothing. She was also doing a bit of flight – avoidance activities that were not moving things forward.

I suggested that if she was going to be in a fear response then let’s choose fight!

If you choose to fight through the fear and the negative thoughts and emotions that are coming up and TAKE ACTION INSTEAD guess what?

You build the skill of taking action even when things are hard.

Then…

• The more you take action when things are hard, the better you will get at doing hard things.
• The better you get at something the more confidence and pride you have in your accomplishments.
• When you take action, even when it is hard, you trust yourself more.
• When you take action on hard things, you get results faster and can adjust more quickly if needed.
• You learn by taking action. The more you learn the more you know. The more you know, the better able you are to make strong decisions.

Here’s the thing … the anticipation and accompanying limiting thoughts and feelings about something hard are almost always worse than the actual doing of the hard thing.

💣💣💣 Truth Bomb: You are already feeling afraid, overwhelmed, ashamed, and guilty. When you don’t take action, or do avoidance actions, you just get to feel afraid, overwhelmed, ashamed and guilty longer!

No thank you!

Instead:

• Choose to fight through the limiting thoughts and feelings.
• Take some small action steps.
• Acknowledge what you have done by saying aloud, “I did that thing!”