#16: Transformation tip: Navigating a Career Pivot
In this episode, I’m sharing a transformation tip to help you navigate a career pivot.
Before we get started with navigating a career pivot, May is my birthday month. I wanted to share a special treat with you all because I'm excited to celebrate another milestone and I wanted to offer something to you in case it's helpful for you and where you are on your journey.
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Navigating a Career Pivot
For today's episode, I wanted to share a transformation tip about making a career pivot. This is something that I've done quite a few times in my life, whether it was changing roles within a company come to completely different departments, to completely different business units of the company, or shifting to my own business and creating my own business, scaling that business, taking it different directions, closing one business, opening another. I've done a lot of different things in my career. There's one key thread that I feel is so important. It might seem very basic when I share it, but it's something that I've seen can really fall through the cracks. You can forget about it. I've forgotten about it. Some of my clients have forgotten about it. I wanted to use it to serve as a reminder for wherever you are within the pivot process, so that you don't get discouraged. Because it can feel it can feel challenging to be in that in between time, between jobs, or between things even within your own business and what you want to be doing for the longer term. When we feel that we're in that space, when it feels frustrating or long or challenging, it's easier to give up. It's easier to quit and think that, actually, I can't do this, or what was I thinking? And you just kind of settle back into the old ways. But it doesn't have to be that way for you.
What I wanted to talk about is remembering to leverage your past experiences during your pivot season. So what does this mean? It means that take a look at all of your skills. Even if you don't want to be doing the same thing you've been doing, you most definitely have transferable skills that can go to that new area that you're looking at.
Say, for example, you wanted to change industries. You're tired of working in the industry that you are in. You've always wanted to work in this other field, maybe doing the same job or a similar job, but completely different industry. Let's say you were in pharmaceuticals and you want to go to consumer goods. It can seem hard to just say that on the resume. Oh, well, I was in this industry, and now I want to go to this other one. But what you can do is really leverage all of the transferable skills that you have and make those the centerpiece. Make those the things that you talk about in terms of what you're really great at and how you'll be an asset to the new team.
Whether it's your leadership style and that you've worked with cross functional teams or something else within the realm of those skill sets. Project management's another one. There's a lot of things that no matter what industry you're in, they're important skills to have. So you can leverage those, play them up a bit, and have it feel more like, okay, I'm in this in between process, but I have something to offer here. And so I'm going to keep showcasing those things. You could talk about it in interviews. You can have it on your resume, speak about those things when you're networking with other people. As you keep reminding yourself of that, you start living it a little bit more, you get more comfortable with it, and it will change the way you look at that next step that you're taking. It won't seem so big. It won't seem like a big leap in a lot of ways because you're grounded in the knowing of the skills that you already have that can work over there too.
I'd say the same thing for if you're pivoting with your business or even if you want to leave a career and start your own business. There's also a season where you can be leveraging the knowledge that you have from your career and use that in your business. For example, for me, when I still had my corporate job, I had been building a product business on the side. When I finally decided to leave the corporate job to build the corporate when I decided to leave the corporate job to build the product business full time, I ended up in those early days, I took some consulting jobs related to my old career because it was a way for me to have flexibility, still be focused on my new business, not be so attached as an employee, and make some money on the side that felt supportive to where I was and what I was trying to grow.
It's important to remember that you can leverage the skills you already have. You're not starting from scratch. Whatever pivot you're looking to make, remember that you're not starting from scratch. I am guilty of doing this probably with every pivot or change that I make. I think I'm starting from scratch. I want to burn everything down. I say, well, oh, I'm starting over. I'm starting from the beginning again. No. Absolutely not. There's over twenty years of experience in there that didn't just go away. So it's important to remember that you have many skills even if you want to use them differently in the future, even if you see yourself in a completely different career, in a completely different business ownership role, whatever it is, remember that you're bringing so many things with you. You get to choose what those are, and you get to choose how you highlight them and leverage them. There's no harm in doing that. There's no negative side of leveraging those things. If anything, if you don't leverage them, you're being too hard on yourself.
Even in my case, if I thought, oh, my corporate experience doesn't help me with growing my product business. Actually, it did in a lot of ways because I had a manufacturing background, and I was able to figure out the process more for my product. And then as I did consulting jobs that were still project management related or, you know, consulting and contracting on certain projects. I could bring my past experiences plus all of the things that I was learning as being a business owner.
Everything you do and everything you try builds on each other, and it's an asset. And it's part of your toolkit of knowledge that you have and that you offer and what makes you uniquely you. So remember to use it. So that's what I wanted to say for today is that it's really, really important to keep that in mind. It's easy to lose sight of it and important to keep in mind that you're not starting from scratch, and you can leverage whichever things you want from your background in order to plan the next steps of your career or your business or anything else that you're planning in your life. It all builds. It's all worthwhile, and it all brought you to where you are right now, which is also very important.
Conclusion on Navigating a Career Pivot
The reflection, homework, and invitation for this week is to take a look at your past and current skills so they can support you as you navigate your career pivot.
Identify your transferable skills. These can be both:
Tactical/educational (technical skills, specific knowledge, certifications, etc.)
Intangible qualities (leadership style, emotional intelligence, how you work with people, etc.)
Reflect and consider:
What past experiences or skillsets have been pivotal during your previous career changes?
What are you bringing with you into this next phase?
How can you continue to leverage these skills and experiences as you move forward?
In what ways are you not starting from scratch?
Action step:
Make a list of these skills and experiences as a reminder of the value you bring to your next opportunity—whatever that may be
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I'm here as a guide and a mentor to support more people in showing up and doing the work to become more of who they really truly are, live more in alignment so we can all be a part of this journey in a new and different way.
Thank you so much for listening today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, and I'll talk to you next week.
Resources mentioned:
If you’d like to connect further about unlocking the next step in your personal development journey, please feel free to reach out. I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram. I'm also on Voxer at @MaryClavieres.
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Thank you for being here. If you found this helpful in some way, please feel free to share it with a friend or a loved one. You can leave a rating or review. It helps the podcast to be seen by more people and I so, so appreciate you being here. Thank you so much for reading and have a great rest of your day. I'll see you next week.
Previous Podcast Episodes to Listen to:
The Quiet Parts of Transformation That No One Tells You About
Spring Reset: How to Reinvent Yourself
The Power of Creative Self Expression in Everyday Life
Transformation Tip: Be Willing to Do Things Differently
4 Keys to Create Lasting Change
3 Things that Hold You Back in Life and Business
3 Simple Ways to Reconnect and Embrace the Present Moment
How to Get Different Results in Life & Business Using the Results Pyramid
How Small Steps Lead to Big Changes
How to Overcome the Fear of Making Decisions
The Easiest Way to Practice Gratitude in One Minute a Day
