How to reconnect with the things that you once loved doing

 

When I work with clients who are looking at their carer options, we start by looking back at the things they once loved doing. 

 

It turns out that not only is this great for your career, generating ideas and options for exploration, it’s also a way to re-discover those things that provide the colour, the fun and pure pleasure of life.

 

In today’s episode, I’m going to be talking about how you can plug back into the good stuff and enjoy your life and career much more in the process.

 

 Hello and a very warm welcome to Episode No 8 of ‘Your Bravo Career’

 

My name is Mark Crossfield, I’m a Professional Career Coach helping you to love your job and build a great career. 

 

This podcast is about why your career matters

 

how you can enjoy what you are doing day each day at work

 

and how to build a great career along the way.

 

 Welcome back. How are you doing? I hope you are doing ok?

 

As I record this, the UK is still in lockdown, and for many of you, I know you will be working from home.  Your work may have been drastically affected by the impacts of Coronavirus.

 

Challenging times.  And for many, the first casualty has been the enjoyment of your job.

 

As a career coach, I’m always thinking about how we can enjoy our jobs more. And whilst we can’t necessarily enjoy all aspects of our job, the current situation has definitely added that extra to challenge, hasn’t it.

 

Lack of social interaction, virtual meetings, unpredictable and unrelenting work cycles are all factors we are dealing with.

 

To support you, before we get into the main part of the show, I have put together 4 ways to help you enjoy your job more right now.

 

The first is to …

 

1.      Focus on what you like about your work   

 

I’ve noticed that when we start to drift into a state of not enjoying our work, it’s usually because we are predominantly focusing on the things we don’t enjoy. With this negative mindset, it’s harder to spot the enjoyable aspects of work.  So, instead, try to turn your attention to the things you do enjoy, or the things you could enjoy about your job.

 

What I’ve found is when you choose to focus on those aspects that are positive, it becomes easier to feel better about your work situation. It also gives you the fortitude to tackle the less enjoyable aspects of your work.

 

So, the second way is to …

 

2.      Use boundaries to enjoy work more

We all know that homeworking blurs the boundaries between work and life.

 

Boundaries, therefore, help to create a healthy ‘sandbox’ between the workday and when it’s time to enjoy life with your family or when you want to engage in activities that you enjoy but are non-work related. 

 

This can help when you have a ritual: going for a walk, turning on some music or ceremoniously switching off and removing computers and work documents.

 

The third way to enjoy your job more is …

 

3.      Stay connected

While working from home has its benefits, it can also become an isolated way of working. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to stay in touch with those that matter – this boosts their mental wellbeing as well as your own.

 

Why not arrange to speak to people at work, or in your network, and have a mood-boosting conversation. Maybe organise a digital coffee break?

 

Add finally,

 

4.      Think longer term

Whilst you may be working from home for a while yet, it’s worth remembering that the current situation will not last forever. 

 

By thinking longer term, it’s easier to see that your circumstances are likely to change, with some of the more enjoyable aspects of your work returning. 

 

-       Focus on what you like about work

-       Use boundaries to enjoy work more

-       Stay connected

-       Think longer term

 

And …

 

Thinking longer term is also great Segway into the main part of the show. 

 

You see, in your life and career, when you can reconnect with the things that you once loved doing it helps you think about the future direction of your career and how you can get some more enjoyment back in there.

 

This is not the only thing I focus on when I am working with clients to transform their career. We also look at their strengths, values and other their interests. 

 

But it’s a very important aspect. And what I have found is that people lose track of who they are, what they are interested in, what they enjoy doing. And this can lead to a disconnect between their career path, the direction they are heading in and what they enjoy doing, or what they have a deep interest in.

 

When you lost track of these things it’s easy to feel adrift and that your career lacks enjoyment and is somehow, off-track.

 

If that has happened to you, you’re in the right place. 

 

This happened to me actually …

 

I spent nearly 30 years working in local government, mostly in a management role. I was good at it, although certainly not exceptional. It came relatively easily to me, paid the bills, and it was a pretty comfortable career path.

 

And yet, I didn’t look forward to work. I lived for the weekends and holidays. I felt that my life was slipping away and that I was wasting my precious time doing something I didn’t enjoy.

 

I envied those people who loved what they did and couldn’t wait to start work. I always wanted to be one of those people.

 

I started to think about the things I enjoyed doing earlier in my life and also in the first stages of my career. I looked at what I was interested in and where I had some transferable skills.

 

I finally went for it. I left my job and started my own career coaching business in 2019. I can now say with full confidence that I really love what I do.

 

So, here’s a 5 step-by-step plan to help you to reconnect with your interests.

 

And later I’ll talk about how you can use these to help shape the future direction of your career. 

 

 

Childhood is often when our deep interests and true passions emerge. So think about what you loved long before you had to worry about your career. Did you love writing? Carrying out science experiments? Taking care of people? Drawing?

 

I loved to write when I was a child and now with the marketing aspect of my job I get to write about career issues most days. Sometimes this is only for 20 or 30 minutes. But I enjoy it.

 

A word of caution here. It’s only necessary for you to have enjoyed the activity. You don’t need to have been the best in your class or extremely proficient. For now, just look at things you enjoyed doing as a child.

 

Was there a subject you were particularly interested in? Or an activity that you loved doing. Try to separate out the subjects you enjoyed because you liked the teacher from those that you liked because of the subject. 

 

Also, what were your early ambitions when you were 7, 11 and 14? What things did you want to do when you grow up’?

 

 

What hobbies and interests did you have?

What things did you do with your time for the pure love of the activity?

My sister was always knitting and sewing, undertaking craft projects. She loved it!

She now has her own business selling haberdashery and fabric.

What did she call it? Yep, Always Knitting and Sewing

 

Did you have earlier work roles that you enjoyed?

 

Often some of our earlier work roles can be the most exciting. What did you enjoy about some of the earlier work roles you had?

What was good about those earlier days in your career?

 

And, next …

 

 

What books do you read, what magazines do you look at? How do you spend your time when you are surfing the internet?

These interests provide an outlet for escape and exploration. But they can also be a pointer towards things you might be interested to pursue in your career.

 

So, to recap, with an open and spacious mind, dwell on these things:

1.    Remember what you loved as a child

2.    What about school or college. What did you enjoy?

3.    What Hobbies and interests did you once enjoy?

4.    Did you have earlier work roles that you enjoyed?

 

And finally,

 

5.    What are you drawn towards right now?

You might want to pause the podcast here and make a note of your thoughts, reflections and ideas

Welcome back. 

In the first section, we looked at how you can re-discover and reconnect with the things that you once loved doing. So, we are now going to look at how this information is useful as a navigation aid for your future career.

The first thing to say is that the actual process of reflecting on the things you once enjoyed doing, puts your mind in a, how can I describe it … a curious and receptive state is probably the best way. It gives you the space to think about how you can use this information for good in your career.  

As I mentioned earlier, thinking about these points gives you the freedom to dwell on what it is you really want to do. It makes you want to reconnect with those things you did enjoy and could enjoy in the future. It reminds you of what enjoyment feels like and this makes it easier to imagine new possibilities.

It could be for you that maybe the idea of work and enjoyment has become disconnected somewhere along the way. Maybe you have an idea that work and enjoyment can’t go together. Or, even shouldn’t go together …

You can choose to think differently about your career and instead use the information you have gathered to spearhead your research for new roles and new careers. 

Here are 3 ways you can do that:

The first way is to do some direct research using a search engine, Google for example. Let’s say you once loved history and it was a real passion for you. A quick internet search of careers in history brings up Archivist, Heritage Manager, Museum Education officer and secondary school teacher. 

Make a note of this information and let’s look at another way to create career possibilities.

And this about accessing and using a website called o net online. You can find this at https://www.onetonline.org

Using the Advanced search function on this website, you can choose ‘Interests’ in the drop-down and this will let you combine your interests in many different ways depending on the type of work areas that relate to those interests.

The good thing about this site is that you can then click on Search to find jobs that might suit you best.

By the way, it’s worth bookmarking this website, it’s very useful for looking at your career options in many other ways and, therefore, I highly recommend it.

My final suggestion is to do some career combining of your own by using a simple matrix or table. And the idea would be, let’s say you have identified 4 areas of interest. And these interests are let’s say: History, problem-solving, baking and gardening.

You would put the 4 interests along the top of the matrix and also down the side. This would give you 16 empty boxes or cells. And you can then see, when you do this, that it’s easy to combine interests creatively. 

So, let me give you an example of how this might work. Combining History and problem solving might lead you to think about careers in archiving and heritage where the focus will be on digging deeper into historical knowledge and understanding.

Another example would be combining gardening and problem-solving. This might get you thinking about how you could create a management or leadership programme for creative thinking based on doing garden activities – getting outdoors, meeting new people and talking in a relaxed environment about your current challenges. 

 

Or maybe you could be a gardener that provides a service to clients that have problem gardens that they have been unable to deal with themselves.

You can see from these examples that the options start to expand pretty quickly when you get creative. In effect you have 12 possible combinations as 4 of the boxes are doubles, History with History for example. But of course, as in the last example, you can have more than one example per box.

As usual, all this information will be in the show notes.

So, I want you this week to:

Take time to reconnect with the things you loved doing

And start to contemplate a future career direction that includes more of the things you enjoy doing?

Then use this information to help shape your future career and life by coming up with some career options that match your interests.

You might also want to relisten to a couple of my previous episodes to help you. Listen to Episode No 5which was specifically about looking backwards in your career to move forwards and also, Episode No 2, when we talked about self-discovery, options creation and how to get stuck in your career.

And of course,

Let me know how you get on.

So, thanks for listening, and

 

Please let me know what you thought about the content

 

As this is a new podcast, feedback really does help me to shape future episodes, and make the content as relevant and helpful as possible.

 

You can email me at mark@bravocoaching.co.uk, and you can find the show notes at bravocoaching.co.uk/podcast

 

If you are interested in working with me, you can book a free discovery call on my website, here: https://www.bravocoaching.co.uk/30-minute-coaching-discovery-call

 

And to remind you that you can download your free Should I stay or should I go guide at https://www.bravocoaching.co.uk/go

 

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Have a wonderful week and I will speak to you again in a couple of weeks time.

 

Bye for now.