Unconventional
strategy 1: Act your way into a new way of thinking and being. You cannot
discover yourself by introspection.
Start by changing
what you do. Try different paths. Take action, and then use the feedback from
your actions to figure out what you think, feel, and want. Don't try to analyze
or plan your way into a new career. Conventional strategies advocated by
self-assessment manuals and traditional career counselors would have you start
by looking inside. Start instead by stepping out. Be attentive to what each step
teaches you, and make sure that each step helps you take the next.
Unconventional
strategy 2: Stop trying to find your one true self. Focus your attention on
which of your many possible selves you want to test and learn more about.
Reflection is
important. But we can use it as a defense against testing reality; reflecting on
who we are is less important than probing whether we really want what we think
we want. Acting in the world gives us the opportunity to see our selves through
our behaviors and allows us to adjust our expectations as we learn. In failing
to act, we hide from ourselves.
Unconventional
strategy 3: Allow yourself a transition period in which it is okay to oscillate
between holding on and letting go. Better to live the contradictions than to
come to a premature resolution.
The years preceding
a career change necessarily involve difficulty, turmoil, confusion, and
uncertainty.4 One of the hardest tasks of reinvention is staying the course when
it feels like you are coming undone. Unfortunately, there is no alternative but
foreclosure-retreating from change either by staying put or taking the wrong
next job. Watch out for decisions made in haste, especially when it comes to
unsolicited offers. It takes a while to move from old to new. Those who try to
short-circuit the process often just end up taking longer.
