One month into the new year, the day of the Chinese New Year, (the year of the tiger, which has me singing eye of the tiger by Survivor!). If you haven’t kept any new year resolutions you can take a fresh start.

Personally, I don’t make them – why would I want to decide to eat less etc. at this dark time of year, so I’ve focused more on being kind to myself and others and especially showing self-compassion.

I differentiate between work goals which I 99.9% deliver and personal ones which are more fluid. I’ve had a challenging 2-3 years working on my doctorate alongside client work, and I’m now having a massive clear out of online files, found on my hard drive, one drive and 2 x external hard drives, never sure if they are the same or different. I now want everything together, get rid of obsolete files so I can then decide what to do. To revise my job search material, create some online learning courses, get ready to run my nature-based retreats.  Clearing out files, like sorting out my bedroom, is so satisfying. You can see what’s been done.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in Ireland with my partner, it was meant to be a holiday but with his tenants giving notice it’s been organising estate agents, new carpets and other things to get the house ready for sale. Dublin was frantic, he also hadn’t seen his family for over 2 years due to covid; we ended with a few days in the country with his brother which was much more relaxing. I felt myself slow down and relax as we headed to Tipperary.

Back home this week and pacing myself.

The great resignation

Are you one of the many to resign in the past 6 months? This was first identified in the US with 4 million Americans leaving their jobs in July 2021 leading to 10.9 million job vacancies.

The greatest number to resign were in the 30-45 age group, in mid-career. Is stress the reason for them to hand in their notice? Possibly with greater numbers resigning in the health care and tech industries than manufacturing and finance (where the numbers resigning declined).

With covid some may have left due to caring commitments or to realise that there is more to life than a stressful job. Time to find something more appealing.

It could be that you took on a job in the run up to March 2020 or indeed during the pandemic and you never got the proper induction needed, and perhaps your team mates or direct reports were off sick and you were under more pressure than is comfortable. This could lead to some ‘time out’ where you focus on what is important to you and to find a job that is a better fit.

I’m interested if your feelings about your job have changed? Do you have any concerns for your future? Is your job becoming more stressful, or are you now bored, back in the workplace and fed up?

This is when career coaching can help – a time to talk about your situation and to help you decide what is best for you to do. Sometimes an outsider can help you take a clearer view, or help you to articulate your feelings and then make a plan.

I had one such session with Will yesterday, we talked around his current situation, possible changes at work and his options. He now has some ideas to take forward alone. Sometimes a one-off session is all that is needed.

For other people we go deeper – talking things through, using assessments to add additional information to consider and then creating a marketing plan – revising CV, updating LinkedIn and getting ready to be proactive in job search.

If you’d like to talk about how I can help do schedule an initial consultation.

Till next time, take care, Denise x