Career pivots and next chapters are a part of almost every successful woman’s arsenal of life-long business growth and renewal. Gone are the days of working for one company forever, or of locking into your college major as your only career path. Replaced with a myriad of necessary changes and new options in a post pandemic world, it is actually trendy and in-the-moment to lead your next career chapter right from the vantage point of your current one. Your career pivot toolkit starts with self-leadership because you lead you from the playroom to the boardroom. Your skillsets are always in motion, simply tap into your intuition and confidence to jump start the process of curating what’s next!

Unsure if you are ready for a reinvent? Begin by asking yourself these questions:

1. Have I outgrown my current role?
2. What does success mean to me now?
3. What am I good at and what energizes me and makes me smile?
4. What is my value-add? What makes me memorable? What drives that?
5. What do I care about? What do I REALLY care about? What have I always wanted to do?

Now, armed with your answers to the above questions, ask yourself one more. Fast forward five years. What do you want to be able to say that you accomplished, reached for, and led? The intersection of all of these questions brings you to an important crossroad. You have the power right now to decide. What changes when you do? What’s your next direction?

Recalibrating starts with an awareness that something needs to change. Call it intuition, yet it is more likely your head and your heart seeking alignment. Listen in when this happens. Tap into what defines your legacy in this moment in time. It is more than likely something different than other benchmarks in your life. Your research begins here, with yourself. If you allow it, your intuition will support you in unlocking the door to your next chapter. Once you unlock it, open the door. Use your career pivot toolkit below to self-lead your next steps. Know that change is daunting. The unknown is, well…unknown! Yet everything you now know was once unknown, so while the fear may be real, recognize that you’ve got this. You have chosen before, that makes you a pro at doing it again and again.

Start from wherever you are:

Give yourself grace and space and begin. Honor your journey. Celebrate your expertise. You are never starting over, you are adding on and evolving. So many women feel intimidated by the prospect of launching their own business, or stepping into a role they have never held before. Think about it this way, what has every job you have held from mom to CEO been preparing you for? When you lead with your value-add, even in a brand new industry, you acknowledge the opportunity of redesigning all of your previous chapters. Like a good book, one chapter sets up and folds into the next. You don’t begin reading the book over again every time you flip the page.

Find and define “the who” not the how: 

Close your eyes and imagine that spot inside of you where your head and your heart energy meet. Who you are today will more than likely be different than who you were graduating from college, or who you were when you got married or became a mom. The essence is the same, but the evolution and the sizzle reel of your life are shaping and cultivating a new you. Engage your senses and reconnect to yourself in real time. Once you grab hold of this choice, ask yourself, “What, if anything is getting in the way of that?” Your answer is your “how.” “How” you will do something is where fear resides. Define and calendar your next steps based on your redefined “what” and “how” will more organically find you. You can now explore other options by being in the doing rather than stuck in a cycle of overthinking. 

 Intersect Personal & Professional: 

Create a list of the things you excel at. Create a list of your successes. Create a list of what you most value. Marry the lists. Your personal life does impact your professional choices and your professional choices do impact your personal life. You are one person in 360 degrees. When you make new decisions from a whole person perspective, you build a life that aligns, fulfills, and gives back to you each day instead of one that you are chasing to balance and complete in tomorrow. This brand of YOU transcends all aspects of your life. Switch your perspective on addressing the whole of you and the clarity you seek to make a next choice emerges. You stop perusing this OR that in favor of this AND that.

 Try this now: 

• Rupture your routine and research what appeals. Be limitless.
• Find a mentor, hire a coach, enable your LinkedIn profile and be curious. Ask.
• Try things on. Be willing to shadow someone, or to be an intern at any age.
• Multi-step it. Think in terms of mini goal bursts. Take a class, start a side hustle, volunteer.

Time block. Use your calendar to create a series of meeting times with yourself to activate and engage consistently with what is possible. Rinse and repeat each week.