How to make 2020 YOUR year – 7 steps to the working life you really want
What does ‘your year’ actually mean?
It means stopping to think about what you really want from your life, how you want to live, and how your work can enable this. Yes, we’re talking about the big picture here, not just the next few weeks.
Choosing to design ‘your year’ is an invitation to switch off the automatic pilot you may have engaged several years (or even decades) ago and reverting to manual. This means making conscious choices to align who you are with what you do and therefore how you live.
Only then will you be shaping your own life, not one you inherited as a 20 something or simply drifted into.
But of course it doesn’t stop with thinking.
If 2020 is to be YOUR year, when you’ve gained new clarity on the kind of life you really want, you have to make some choices and act upon them.
Ready for YOUR decade?
Start with these 7 steps and one reality check – and you’ll truly be designing your own life:
1. Values – when you know your own values and which of these are most important to you at this point in your life, you gain true clarity about what you prize most highly
It could be that autonomy now trumps flexibility, or that creativity has a very different meaning for you now than it did ten years ago. It’s time to check in with yourself and ask some life-defining questions.
When you have this personal and professional insight into your highest values, you can then take authentic decisions to start creating a better life for YOU.
Read more about Values Discovery here.
2. Life– this is YOUR life – are you really in the driving seat?
When was the last time you thought properly about what you want in your life? This is very different from making it through another week with all your plates still spinning. It’s a few steps beyond mere survival and well on the path towards intentional living.
Who do you want in your life?
Where do you want to live?
Who are you at your very best?
What are you doing when you are truly in flow?
What kind of work environment gets the best out of you?
What energises, attracts, excites and rewards you?
These are some big questions, so why not take each in turn and start a daily journal to find your own answers? Or if you’re more visual person, try creating a vision board using my free guide.
Bringing your ideal life into clear focus is an essential step in the Quickstep Career Change Programme. This provides a vital measure of whether your new career direction can provide the life you REALLY want.
It’s also an important step in my soon to be published online programme ‘The Joy of a Blank Canvas – Designing a Life You Love’. you can add your name to the waiting list for all the latest news and special release price by using the contact form.
After all, how you can be fulfilled without knowing what happiness and thriving mean to you?
3. Work – what do you want from your work? Is it allowing the life you really want?
Angela Duckworth, author of ‘GRIT: Why passion and resilience are the secrets to success’ talks about different ways of looking at work:
A job ‘I view my job as just a necessity of life, much like breathing and sleeping’
A career ‘I view my job primarily as a stepping stone to other jobs’
A calling ‘My work is one of the most important things in my life’ (p 150)
How would you describe your work?
Another way of looking at it is to ask whether you live to work or work to live. Whatever your perspective, is it an actual choice you have made and does it need re-visiting?
Is your work offering you the chance to shine, to thrive and live the life you’re yearning for? If not, perhaps the time is right to dig a little deeper and explore what’s out of sync and what needs changing.
4. Action – intent, conscious, informed choice
When you have clarity about why you want to make changes to ensure 2020 really is YOUR year, it would be a missed opportunity if you then don’t take action to bring your vision to life.
When you know what you want to alter and the reasons that make these changes essential to your happiness, make a pact with yourself. Promise you’ll make a plan and take action. For extra motivation, recruit a trusted confidante or work with a coach to ensure your vision aligns with who you are and the future you really want to achieve.
5. Strategy – goals, an intelligent plan, effective tactics
First, bring your vision into focus in words or images by using a vision board or a word for the year to inspire your intention; and only then create a plan.
Secondly, start with your current reality and build a bridge towards your goal. Name each step, pin it down with a target date, and stick to it. Use your trusted friend or coach for extra accountability and to generate new ideas if your initial tactics don’t immediately bring the results you hope for.
If it’s a career change you’re seeking, a systematic process like the Quickstep Career Change Programme takes you step by step from Clarity to Direction and into Action. You’ll emerge with a clear vision, a confident choice and a plan to take you there.
A comprehensive career change programme to swap dreams for reality
6. Crossing the threshold with a whole heart and a clear mind
Any change is complex and challenging. It will involve shifts in perspective, new self-knowledge and draw on qualities such as resilience, flexibility, creativity and passion.
When you achieve your goal, it’s a wonderfully rich and empowering moment. Sadly, many people fail to really notice the transition from past to present or from present to future - and they don’t mark the occasion of crossing this significant threshold.
When I finally launched my career coaching business, giving up a reliable income to do so, I embraced a whole new identity and an inspiring way of living and working. To mark the occasion, I developed a ritual to fully acknowledge this transition.
By reflecting on your past to let go of habits, attitudes and expectations that would otherwise hold you back, you make way for a brighter, more authentic future. By planting your roots into the soil you truly need to flourish in your new life, you are priming yourself to succeed in the next chapter.
Whether starting a new job, changing location or even continents, this self-guided process ensures you’ll be at your very best.
You can read more about the process and self-guided retreat I created here: INSPIRED: Starting again with confidence.
It may be just what you need to seal the deal, or you may also want to create your own transition ritual.
Whatever process you choose, you won’t regret deciding to mark the occasion and set a clear intention for a thriving future.
7. The cost– there will be costs!
What will you give up to allow a more authentic and rewarding future?
When you make changes, there will be costs as well as benefits.
In my case, I had to give up certainty of income in favour of certainty of purpose. It was much easier to give up compromised values, limited opportunities to be myself, and non-aligned business demands!
You may have to give up a specific status, income or identity in order to embrace a new way of living and working that rewards you in ways that are now more important to you.
But have no doubt – there is always a choice. And when you know why this matters so much, it’s so much easier to choose yourself.
And that’s how you make it YOUR year.
I’d love to know which of these ideas resonates most – feel free to let me know in the comments.
And if you’d like to know more about how coaching can help you gain clarity and conviction, just drop me a message.
Happy 2020!
