Blueprint For Change

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Blueprint For Change!

Liliana Lupse

My hand shoots out the second I hear the alarm go off and, with my eyes still closed, I aim perfectly for the snooze button (an art perfected over many years). I roll over, groaning and bemoaning the start of another day! Like all other mornings, my 7-year-old tabby purrs her way delicately along my form and proceeds to kiss me good morning; like all other mornings, her tongue feels like sandpaper on my forehead and the pain causes me to grudgingly open my eyes. I find her peering down at me from her perch on my chest and I don’t have the heart to push her away …yet I grimace each time I feel her tongue on my skin. I find myself sighing heavily, knowing that it is just a matter of minutes now before the alarm will go off again: My day has hardly started and I’m already dreading it!

Does this sound like your day? Well, it was my day for 5 years! Each day, I went through the actions of getting ready for work and dreading actually getting to work; each day when I got home from work, I would plop my exhausted self on the couch and dwell there in a slump for quite some time before getting up again! For 5 years I lived as if on autopilot … I somehow got through the workday and then spent each night dreading the next day and trying to rest as much as possible in anticipation of the exhaustion that would surely come.

So, how did I turn this around for myself? One morning, I lay there with my cat peering down at me and I realized that I couldn’t take the pain anymore! That realization woke me up for the first time in 5 years! I finally saw the reality of my life, as clearly as if it was painted on the ceiling of my bedroom: The resignation with which I started each day, the anxiety of getting through a stressful day, the panic of meeting work deadlines, the fear of losing my job each day, the nervousness, the worries, the apprehension … the agony that I went through each and every day! And for what?  The endless migraines I suffered from? The stomach aches? The acid reflux and nausea? The hip pains, backaches, and various other aches and pains that were so subtle that I couldn’t actually lay claim to them in my doctor’s office? Oh, and let’s not forget about the state of depression with which I experienced each and every day! Surely there was more to life-to my life-than that!

So, that morning, I got out of bed, got ready for work, and actually looked forward to going in. I had made a decision! In my head, I was already writing out the script for the day: I would get to work, write out my resignation, hand it to my manager, and count down the 14 days until I would be free; I was half temped to quit on the spot, but my professionalism wouldn’t let me do it. Besides, burning bridges, especially in the corporate world, never served anyone! For the first time, I had hope of something better, something worth getting up for in the morning!

That night, instead of stopping on the couch, I sat at my desk and wrote out my blueprint for change: This would be my plan and the steps I needed to take towards changing my career. More importantly, though, was giving myself a timeframe in which to achieve my goal. My bank account dictated that I only had 1 month in which to achieve my goal, so it was time for action!

·        At first, I didn’t know what kind of work I actually wanted to switch to. After all, I didn’t want to leave one dead-end job only to find myself in another. So, I asked myself what I would want to be doing if I had all the money in the world: The answer to this question gave me a clear indication of where my interests lay. Furthermore, in order to narrow down this field of work, and be as specific as possible as to what work I wanted to do in order to find fulfillment and not burnout, I brainstormed all of my skills (learned abilities), values (beliefs), interests (enjoyed activities), and traits (characteristics describing who I am). I didn’t edit myself at all … I wrote everything down. I was amazed at how hard this was to do, but I persevered! Then I had to step back and look at this list objectively, as if this was someone else’s list I was reading: I could hardly believe that this competent individual was me! Familiarizing myself with my strengths and attributes was absolutely necessary! For the first time in a long time (5 years to be exact), I actually believed that I had a lot to offer my next employer!

·        The next thing I needed to do was research the job market: Besides relying on advertised jobs in newspapers and on the Internet, I knew that securing a meaningful job meant that I had to tap into the hidden job market by networking and cold calling. I even looked through the yellow pages for ideas of companies to target with a cold call and my resume. Of course, the script I wrote out for the cold calls came in handy, especially after having practiced it a few dozen times so it didn’t sound like I was reading it!

·        Dusting off the old resume and re-vamping it was the next step on my blueprint to a successful career change. Having just reviewed my strengths and attributes, I clearly saw just how valuable an employee I would be to any company, and that pride in myself needed to shine through my resume! If I was going to be successful in marketing myself, I knew I had to choose high-impact verbs to describe my skills and duties within my employment history. ‘Responsible for…’ was replaced with action words like ‘Supervised…’, ‘Achieved…’, ‘Managed…’, and ‘Interacted…’ on my resume! Reading my resume, I was satisfied that I effectively sold myself on the top ¼ of the first page, and that critical information about me jumped off the page so that a prospective employer could see my main credentials within 15 seconds of skimming my resume.

·        Formatting my cover letters so they’re customized towards each job I was applying for was crucial! This is why it was so vital for me to gain insight into my skills, especially the ones that are transferable to any work situation: Employers can teach new employees specific skills, but teaching someone functional skills like communicating, researching, initiating, and managing is not so easy; neither is teaching new employees self-management skills that communicate attitude and motivation: So, I made sure that my resume and cover letter indicated that I was energetic, open-minded, flexible, optimistic, team-oriented, and dedicated. You either have it or you don’t, and I certainly had it! My job now was to make sure this was evident to someone else!

·        Setting up a list of references was my next step. First and foremost, this involved calling people and asking permission to have them as my references. Given that I’d be judged by who I had listed as a reference, the ideal situation was to have people who are leaders in an organization at the management or professional level: The ones I would be asking to be my references would be former employers, community officials, and any other leader who personally knew who I was and was willing to speak highly of me! Informing them of the kind of work I was seeking and some of my qualities that I might want them to mention was essential. After all, my references and what they say about me could make the difference between getting that important job or being passed over. Of course, I made a mental note to remember to thank my references once I knew that they had provided a reference for me.

·        Keeping a list of my job-seeking activities was also key! Knowing the date on which I applied for a job and to whom I addressed my resume would come in handy for my follow-ups! Again, I made a note to myself to follow-up no longer than 1 week, after I initially sent out my resume, with a polite call to check my status with their organization. Persistence is a good trait to have and I wanted to ensure that any prospective employer knew just how much I was interested in working for him/her. If I impressed upon this employer my wealth of knowledge, considerable skills, and readiness for work, I would consider having achieved the purpose of my follow-up.

·        The next thing on my list was taking inventory of my wardrobe: Was it suitable for the new career I was embarking upon? I already knew that I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on new clothes, but I also knew that I didn’t have to! Second hand stores like consignment boutiques, Goodwill, and Value Village stores are all affordable ways to add those much-needed suit jackets to my wardrobe!

·        Now I was ready for the interviews! I practiced how I would use the ‘STAR’ method to answer some of those tough ‘behaviour-based’ questions: I knew that I needed to give some well-thought-out examples of specific situations or tasks (ST) and what action (A) I took to achieve a specified result (R). I also knew that it was important that I go in the interview with some of my own questions to ask so as to demonstrate that I was serious about the position! Showing interest in the job, listening carefully when the interviewer is talking, smiling, making eye contact, sitting up tall and confident, and offering a firm handshake at the beginning and the end of the interview are all key things I made sure to remember to do at the interview. Thanking the interviewer at the end of our meeting, and ensuring I had his/her correct name spelling and title for the ‘Thank You’ card I would be sending immediately upon leaving was also something that would look favourably upon me.

Now, I was well on my way to a new future! I had a blueprint of steps to follow and was confident that the right job was just around the corner. The last thing that I did was visualize myself already having achieved that perfect job! Each night before I fell asleep, I would imagine myself being happy, fulfilled, and energized at this new job setting. Something about envisioning myself already in a rewarding career, looking forward to going to work, and receiving acknowledgment for a job well-done made me believe that I deserved it! The more I envisioned this image for myself, the more comfortable I felt with it and the more I wanted to achieve it! There was indeed more to life, and it was not too late to make a change! More importantly, I had all the tools I needed to make it happen!