How to Explore Career Options

Once you heed the call from deep within to explore a new career you will at some point reach the exploration phase of your transition. Armed with self-knowledge about the skills you most love to use at this time in your life, some general fields or positions that you think would be a good fit, and the kind of organizational culture you thrive in, you are ready to search for specific opportunities that fit.
In the exploration phase, you are following ideas/prompts/leads that can come from anywhere. The sources of these prompts include journaling, contemplation, in a meditation, after a prayer, from another person sharing something, from a book, a poem, something you see on TV, brainstorming with a coach.
The key to the exploration phase of your career transition is understanding that this phase is not for deciding but sheer exploration.
What this means is that you stay open, follow the prompts you receive from inside or outside, take action steps that are inspired by these prompts, track them and see where they lead, and monitor how you feel as you explore each one.
The opportunities that have heart for you will emerge and you will continue exploring them until you have specific decisions to make. A specific decision is when you have a job offer, or have negotiated a contract for consulting, and the next step is saying Yes and signing. Up until that point you want to stay in that open place and not get attached to any one possibility.
The key challenge of this phase is to allow yourself to stay in a place of uncertainty. Why? Because, as Deepak Chopra explains in the Seven Spiritual laws of Success “Uncertainty is the fertile ground of pure creativity and freedom.”
Chopra adds: “Relinquish your attachment to the known, step into the unknown, and you will step into the field of all possibilities...One characteristic of the field of all possibilities is infinite correlation. The field can orchestrate an infinity of space-time events to bring about the outcome intended…When you get attached, you freeze your desire from the infinite fluidity and flexibility into a rigid framework which interferes with the whole process of creation.”
I have seen the field of all possibilities bring the most astonishing outcomes for my clients, with a new career or company that is perfectly customized for them beyond what either of us could have imagined.
But this only works when they have been willing to stay in uncertainty and that can challenge us humans who usually want to nail everything down as quickly as possible to outwit our anxiety. Managing your emotions that make you want you to close down the search and staying open until the right thing reveals itself as you take action will yield the best and highest outcome for you.
During the exploration phase there are three strategies you are using:
- Informational interviews – having a structured conversation with people who are doing what you want to do or may want to do.
- Networking – attending in-person or virtual events/group meetings in the field or with the companies you desire to learn more about or hang out with professionals doing a similar thing you may desire to do.
- Searching job listings and applying for jobs/positions that interest you or taking steps toward a consulting contract.
To keep momentum going in the exploration phase, have five action steps you are working on at any given time. Mix and match the exploration strategies and keep track of what happens. Set up a tracking sheet that includes: Action Step, Date, Result, How that Felt. You want to monitor your feelings because the emotional/energetic reaction to an action step, conversation, or job interview is important information for you to monitor. The right opportunity will have a kind of flow about it and mostly will feel really good.
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