The Reinvention Coach

An Easy Way to Reach Your Reinvention Goals! (tomorrow night)

Just a quick reminder that if you’ve been meaning to sign up for our A Four Step Plan teleclass and learn a simple strategy for turning your reinvention goals into reality, time (and space) is running out!

The class takes place tomorrow (Wednesday, May 23^rd) at 9:00pm Eastern.  If you’ve registered for the call—even if you can’t attend—you get the following bonuses:

·         A downloadable MP3 recording of the teleclass—you can listen to it on your iPod, or burn it to CD and listen in your car!

·         A Reinvention Goals Workbook that you can use to craft your own personal Four-Step Plan.

BUT… for those who make it to the call, there’s an exclusive bonus-- a special Q&A session where you can get coaching pointers on your own reinvention!  So don’t delay, and grab one of the few remaining spots by registering here.

‘See’ you tomorrow night….

Pamela

P.S.  Remember that we’re offering this teleclass at the “we’re adding content to the book” price of only $29!  This is a HUGE savings over the $500+ cost of our flagship course, Career Reinvention BootCamp.  Take advantage of this rare offer and sign up now.

P.P.S.  This class takes place over telephone bridge line.  Once you’ve registered here, you'll receive an email with the dial-in details. 

Taking action!

Many people often talk about the actions they intend to take to reinvent their career, mistaking the talking for action.  There's an old Chinese saying that 'Talk don't cook rice'.  To take action, you must actually DO something.  So how do you move from thinking into action despite a hectic schedule?  Here are some suggestions from our Career Reinvention BootCamp eCourse:

1. Make it manageable:  Break it down into 15-minute increments (i.e. I will spend 15 minutes surfing the job board sites).  If it’s something you don’t particularly like doing but must (like drafting a cover letter), use a timer and give yourself permission to quit when it goes off.  Where can you find 15 minutes? Turn off that Law & Order rerun early-- you already know how it ends!  Tell your sister you can’t talk for long, because you have something to do.  Decide that you’re only going to surf your favorite blogs for 30 minutes.  Look for other time stealers in your day and cut back.
2. Make it consistent:  Small steps taken on a regular basis are better than overloading yourself. You may feel ambitious, but if you put too much pressure on yourself you can burn out.  For example, don’t try to rewrite your resume in one 15 minute period!
3. Make it realistic:  Don’t tackle the big picture every day (i.e. I’ll get a job) —you’ll feel overwhelmed.  Instead, pace yourself. Setting your sights on smaller tasks ( i.e. I’ll respond to this job posting), will increase your chance of actually accomplishing them.  And each one counts! 
4. Make it possible:  Keep your tools handy; don’t sabotage yourself by making it difficult to complete a task.  For example, if you’re doing a daily success list, you may want to keep a notebook and pen handy by your bedside.
5. Make it fun:  Find a way to do your tasks in a way that you enjoy, or give yourself a reward for each accomplishment.  Positive reinforcement always works!
6. Make it optional:  If the pressure is killing your initiative, give yourself an out-clause.  For example, decide you will take action towards your target career for a month and then revisit whether or not you want to continue.

Get going right now and decide which actions you plan to take to get going!

A Four Step Plan for Achieving Your Reinvetion Goals

REMINDER:  The teleclass A Four Step Plan for Achieving Your Reinvention Goals was moved to Wednesday, May 23rd at 9pm Eastern. If you're interested in reinventing your career (or your life!) and looking for an easy, step-by-step plan to make it happen, then you don't want to miss it!

The call will be recorded, so even if you can't make it that evening, sign up anyway-- you can listen in later AND still receive the bonus Reinvention Goals Workbook, all for only $29 (a huge savings off the price of one of our regular courses).

To grab one of the spots, sign up here.  Look forward to 'seeing' you on the call!

Rules to boost your productivity

Personal development guru Steve Pavlina has a great article listing 33 rules to boost your productivity (check it out here).  There are a number that can be put to good use to help you reinvent your career; I've included a few of my favorites below along with my commentary:

#2:  Dailies.  Schedule a specific time each day for working on a particular task or habit.  One hour a day could leave you with a finished book, or a profitable Internet business a year later. (Or a new career!)

#5: Gratitude.  When someone does you a good turn, send a thank-you card.  That’s a real card, not an e-card.  This is rare and memorable, and the people you thank will be eager to bring you more opportunities. (This is a particularly good strategy to use when reinventing your career.  Make sure you ALWAYS thank each person, in writing, that helps you along the way.  Don't forget to let them know when you-- and thank them again for their part in your success!)

#11:  Mastermind.  Run your problem past someone else, preferably a group of people.  Invite all the advice, feedback, and constructive criticism you can handle. (In our world, this is known as your 'Reinvention Team', a circle of supportive people who can help you achieve your goal.  Assemble one, and use it!).

#30: Inspiration.  Read inspiring books and articles, listen to audio programs, and attend seminars to keep absorbing inspiring new ideas (as well as to refresh yourself on the old ones). (This is a good tip to help you 'keep the faith' during those inevitable bumps along the career reinvention road.  Read stories of people who've reinvented their career; talk to others who've done it so that you'll know you'll make it through the tough moments eventually land in a career you love!) 

These tips are taken from the 2nd volume of his article; you can read his first set of 33 tips here.

Going to the chapel...

During the process of career reinvention, you may find that due to the demands of life (busy week on the job, kids sick, etc.) you cannot accomplish as much as you had planned.  This can cause a lot of frustration, and you may fall into the trap of beating yourself up for not doing more (this is pretty common among my coaching clients).

What you must understand is that you reinvent your career during your life!  Don’t believe the myth that you should always be able to put in the same amount of effort towards making things happen, no matter what.  The process of crafting your next phase is fluid, and you must shift your expectations of what you can accomplish according to the demands of your life.  Some weeks it’ll be easy to have lots of networking meetings or work on your reinvention resume, other weeks you’ll be lucky to have time to make a phone call.  The key is to understand that times like this are a normal part of the career reinvention process and to forgive yourself when you’re unable to accomplish all that you had planned.

I got a chance to experience this situation first-hand last week!  I am getting married this upcoming Saturday; nonetheless I thought I’d have enough time last week to do my usual blog newsletter posts.  Didn’t happen!  I seriously underestimated how the demands of my life—in this case a wedding, with an unmovable deadline!—would take over my time.

I’ve had to do some work to forgive myself for not getting the newsletter out last week, and I hope you’ll forgive me too!  I’ll be back on track the week of May 21—see you after the honeymoon!