Page 16 - Talane Miedaner - Coach Yourself to a New Career_ 7 Steps to Reinventing Your Professional Life (2010)

4 COACH YOURSELF TO A NEW CAREER

Part of this necessitates that you identify your personal require-
ments. This approach may not be what you’d expect in a career
book, but if you don’t know what you need both personally and
professionally, you may end up pursuing the wrong career path
and wasting thousands of dollars and years of time unnecessar-
ily. One of my clients had gone to engineering school and became
an engineer—even though she hated it—so that she could gain
her father’s approval. If you don’t know what your personal needs
are, you may make the same mistake and take on educational pro-
grams or even careers in the attempt to fulfill your own unmet
needs. You may think this is silly, but our personal requirements
are powerful and will drive us to do all sorts of things, even get-
ting a law degree you don’t really want or becoming an engineer
when you are really a people person. There are much easier ways
to get your requirements satisfied.
I’ve made it really easy for you to identify your own top four
personal requirements with a simple quiz you can take in about
twenty minutes. Not only will this exercise help prevent you from
making the wrong career and business choices, but also, getting
your needs fulfilled will have the bonus side effect of making you
much more attractive to potential employers or clients. We all
know that neediness is unattractive, but we may not know what
our own top four personal requirements are. Well worth the
twenty minutes!
Once you’ve identified your personal requirements, we’ll look
at what your dreams and goals are. What would be an ideal life
and career for you? It isn’t any good to take on a career only to dis-
cover that it conflicts with your ideal life.
The next step is to identify your natural talents, strengths,
and abilities with some simple and fun assignments. The secret
to being effortlessly successful is to know what your natural and
unique talents and abilities are. It makes sense that if you are
hardwired to do something really well, with a little bit of train-
ing and practice you’ll become masterful at this task or job. Most
people find that doing something that they are good at is also per-
sonally rewarding and fulfilling. This is one of the easiest ways to