Page 15 - Talane Miedaner - Coach Yourself to a New Career_ 7 Steps to Reinventing Your Professional Life (2010)

INTRODUCTION 3

The simple exercises and assignments in this seven-step pro-
gram will help you answer the preceding questions so that you
can clearly articulate and define exactly what you want to do.
This achievement will make it much easier for you to attract the
best business and professional opportunities to you. I’ll never for-
get when I was taking a personal development course and met
a man who ran his own extremely successful consulting firm in
Connecticut. I thought it would be an amazing place to work.
When he asked me what I wanted to do and what I was good at,
my jaw dropped open, and I had no idea what to say. I only knew
what I didn’t like—my banking job—and couldn’t articulate what
I really wanted. I muttered something vague about being a people
person and wanting to work with people. The truth was I didn’t
know what I wanted to do, and I was twenty-nine years old. I’ve met
clients who are fifty-five and say the same thing. I blew my chance
of working for this company by blowing my very first impression.
After reading this book, you’ll be fully prepared to say exactly
what you want in a career and to go for what you want directly
without wasting time pursuing jobs or careers you’ll only want to
leave soon after starting. If you can’t clearly articulate in one to
three sentences your ideal career, if you don’t know what it is that
you value most or what your natural talents are, then read on and
you’ll soon find out!
The first step is about window washing. We’ll do a little house-
keeping, both literally and figuratively. Often people can’t see what
their vision in life is if their windows are dirty. Scrub the dirt off
and suddenly everything becomes so much clearer. I’ve included
a checklist program that you can use to see if there are any areas
in your life that need a bit of attention. And yes, I’m not kidding:
you may need to actually wash your windows! It often helps when
we are looking for a new career to work on areas that we can con-
trol immediately, such as clearing out the clutter in the office and
home; that makes it easier to figure out what you really want. It
is important to eliminate all the unnecessary distractions first.
Otherwise, it can be difficult to achieve the clarity you seek.