I’m trying to help someone close to me find a way out of the hole he’s dug.
He needs a new career path. But he’s trapped in a suffocating world of his own design.
The particular set of hurdles this person’s up against is small, yet staggering in its ability to stymie any forward motion.
And it’s in my interest to help him succeed. Not for my personal gain but because our worlds intersect. His success would equal a less stressful set of circumstances in my world.
I’d do the deed no matter what
As I said, it’s personal and I’d do anything for this man.
But this particular area is something I find myself helping people with, whether I want to or not.
It’s partly a compulsion to both help and to see someone become who they were meant to be. Or at least get closer to it than they are now.
And it’s also a test of my own problem solving abilities, powered by a desire to win that flavors all I do.
Helping others make life changes, especially the very large ones like this, enables me to do the same for myself.
And it increases my ability to help out with increasingly larger challenges that any of us might face
As the past holder of 40+ job titles, I have a deep and wide set of experiences to pull from, in order to help others make a switch.
It’s funny. I can’t hold a job (obviously). But I used to be able to find the shit outta one when I needed to!
So I use my worklife knowledge to help others who are still in the game.
It’s not that I wish to become a career counselor. I don’t. Although I seriously considered it more than once.
But this “plant a seed and watch it grow” perspective of mine permeates much of my daily decision making.
I can’t NOT try!
And I frequently want the plan to succeed more than the person I’m trying to help.
That can (and has) become an exercise in futility that only ends up torturing me when it becomes clear that the job searcher is nowhere near as invested, or as confident in themselves or the plan, as I am.
Or they end up feeling beholden to me for trying so hard, as they didn’t reciprocate with the same amount of effort and zeal. And that’s bad. I don’t want them feeling that way.
Took me awhile to stop trying to do this for everyone who came my way with a career switch frustration story.
But I dabble in it in the back of my mind. I feel that it’s smart to at least come up with these answers, regardless. Just to round out my abilities to do solids for people in other ways, if nothing else.
And thinking that way gives me some release from the pressure I put on myself for not wanting to let others down. I’m improving my game even if no one can see that from the outside.
I began “The Dig” last night
No direct hits. But some meaty leads worth following up. And I’ll keep digging until a solid plan can be pursued.
But it forced me to remember, to rediscover why certain things were important to me, and to expose myself to that whole side of my experiences in a way that let’s me see the hidden life answers guarded within.
There is a lot of “between the lines” thinking needed to successfully complete a search of this kind.
And that ability is endlessly applicable to all else I do. With any luck, you’ll get that as you dig through my Resources page and more.
And you’ll be able to read between the lines to find the hidden answers I have for you that maybe even I don’t see. Then we’ll talk and start building whatever dream it is that you’re kicking around.
