5 Smart Strategies to De-Stress & Accelerate Any Career or Business Transition

"If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world
but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all."
Anna Quindlen

Have you fallen out of love with your career (or has it fallen out of love with you?) There is nothing scarier for a high-achiever than to hit the top of their profession and wonder what it's all for. 

If you're at this type of critical career crossroads - your thoughts might be overwhelmed with questions about, "What's next?" and "What's my purpose?"

You know you're ready for more - just not more of the same. You want to take charge of your career and time but how? Start your own business? Get another job?

In this blog post I take you through the 5 smart strategies that will help you figure out what's next and how to make it real.

Step 1: Make a Bugs List

Your career challenges aren't what they seem. On the surface they seem to be about the nutty way your company redefined your job (or took it away.) Or how the relentless pressure to perform is burning you out. 

The truth is - these challenges aren't a sign that everything is falling apart. It's a sign that everything is coming together for your greatest good. Inherent in what is driving you crazy about today is ultimately what you want to create in your life.

So take inventory on what is causing the most dissatisfaction in your career.

• Is it the job and how it's no longer the right fit or the long hours?
• Is it your company and the culture and environment is offers?
• Is it lack of balance and time for play, hobbies and spending time with loved ones?
• Is it the unique stressors that comes with high-achievement like the excessive hours, complex corporate politics, huge span of control or pressure for short-term numbers?

Step 2: Pinpoint Your Career & Life Priorities

Use the discomfort of your current situation to embolden you to be honest about what you really want in your life. Determine what your heart-felt priorities are vs. what you think everyone else expects them to be. Describe your perfect day, month and year - from start to finish. Then translate those aspirations into intentions that your career/business must deliver for you such as:

• Uncapped earning potential
• Location independence
• Unlimited creative freedom
• Time freedom
• Scalability
• Fun
• More time alone/time for reflection
• Travel
• More one-on-one time with clients or more one to many client interactions

Step 3: Choose Your Path

There's lots of ways to reinvent your career. The best one supports your total life priorities. Here's five different paths high-achievers typically take when they find themselves at a career crossroads:

• Start a consulting business
• Start a coaching business
• Buy or start a company
• Get a new role in the same company
• Stay in current role but in a new company
• Become a freelancer or contractor with consulting firms
• Quit and think about it for a while

The path that is right for you suits your strengths and passions and motivates you to invest your time, talents and money towards creating the success you envision.

The path that isn't right for you is the one that fear chooses for you. Fear is designed to help you survive but has no interest in your highest potential.

Step 4: Productively Engage Fear

The presence of fear, while disruptive, isn't an indicator that you're not on the right path. It's actually evidence that you are!

Listen deeply to what it wants so it will partner with you taking empowered actions towards achieving your new career vision. The worst thing you can do is ignore your fear or pretend that it doesn't exist, which will only make it stronger and more debilitating.

Step 5: Strategize Your Transition

The #1 career transition mistake is to wait until your frustration hits a breaking point or until a decision is made for you. The time to set up a transition plan is when you start to feel discomfort with your current situation. Here's 10 things you can do:

• Set a cutover date where you want to be in your new job or have your business up and running
• Set financial targets and goals
• Identify seed money to help you with transition
• Organize your contacts
• Archive intellectual property
• Collect testimonials and case studies
• If you want to start a business - start working on it 6 months before you ideally want to leave
• Find a supportive community of likeminded professionals
• Get your loved ones on board
• Hire a mentor