We all have an Inner Saboteur, AKA Gremlin or Inner Critic, which sees change as a threat. So when you think about change, particularly career change, because of the potential impact on your financial security, your Saboteur is on high alert. A key part of career change therefore, is learning how to manage it.
Your Saboteur is brilliant at creating “limiting beliefs”. These are a set of generalisations we make up about ourselves, other people and life as a whole. The seeds of them are often sewn at an early age and although there’s often no hard evidence to back up them up, the Saboteur will repeatedly remind us of them, conning us into thinking that they are “the truth”. They become our version of reality.
You might hear yourself talking in a very general but absolute way, saying things to yourself like: “I’m not good enough to change, I don’t have any transferable skills”; “career change is too hard, it’s just not worth putting any effort into it”; “work’s not meant to be interesting and fulfilling”; or “I’m too old to do something new”.
So, what can you do to turn the volume down on the Saboteur voice? Here are five steps to try:
- Start by noticing what your saboteur says – get its comments out of your head and down onto paper or on a screen. Become aware of what it’s saying to you about career change. What is it afraid of for you?
- See if there are any common threads between what it says and group its comments if there are. Then choose the three beliefs which hold you back the most.
- For each of those beliefs, ask yourself, “What is the impact on me of holding onto this? What is the benefit I get from it? (Maybe it’s a good excuse to not have to make any effort towards changing). And what is the cost to me of continuing to hold this belief? Dig deep and be honest with yourself.
- Then ask yourself “What is a neutral, factual way of challenging each of these three beliefs?” For example:
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- “I’m not good enough to change, I don’t have any transferable skills” could become “I do have skills (everyone does) and depending on what I’d like to move into, I could develop new skills if I need to”.
- “I’m too old to change now and don’t have the energy to do it” could become “People change career far more now we’re all working for longer and work that’s a great match for me will re-energise me.”
- Write up your new beliefs somewhere where you can see them, so that you’re reminded of them. This will help you to lay down new neural pathways in your brain. The Saboteur’s beliefs might have well-worn pathways, but these will shrink over time as you them, interrupt them and practice focusing on your new beliefs.
Many thanks for the image for this post to Jim Cramer from Pixabay.
