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Writer's pictureBinny Langler

Harnessing Mental Fitness & Defeating Procrastination: Your Career Change Game Plan



There are two key aspects to a successful Career Shift: Mental fitness and overcoming procrastination.


Let's start with Mental Fitness. We have spent most of our lives assuming every voice in our head...is trustworthy. Take a moment to contemplate that idea. What if this isn't the case, all the time?

It's time to meet your Saboteurs

When faced with pivotal decisions, or you're about to step out of your comfort zone, can you rely on those initial thoughts that guide your actions? Your internal voices?

Decisions like leaving a job, transitioning industries, or pursuing childhood dreams trigger a chorus of opinions in our minds - coming from our saboteurs.

These voices often prioritise safety, discouraging major changes and warn against potential mistakes.

They are trying to 'protect us', or are they?

Embarking on a career change journey involves challenges like social acceptance, lifestyle adjustments, and self-trust amidst uncertainty. Our internal saboteurs create an illusion that a career change is like stepping into an abyss - holding us back and perpetuating feelings of doubt and fear, all in the name of protecting us. Which inevitably leads to feeling stuck, paralysed, unsure and generating a huge amount of fear. This then results in procrastination, which we'll cover next!

The Power of Mental Fitness

Imagine instead, maintaining calmness, clarity, and positivity throughout your career change journey.

It requires a dedication to enhancing mental fitness, a practice that evolves over time. Allowing you to take back the drivers seat of your life, pushing your saboteur voices and opinions to the side, into the passenger seat, or better still, asking them to leave the vehicle entirely!

Breaking Habits and Trusting Your Inner Voice

Transforming habits involves intercepting your saboteurs, questioning their validity, and reinforcing positive thought patterns instead. Knowing your saboteurs empowers you to silence them, allowing you to embrace new thought habits, and creates space to connect with your inner sage (your true internal voice!). Your Inner Sage has often been silenced by your saboteurs over time, it's time for your Sage to have a voice again. Completing the Saboteurs Assessment over at Positive Intelligence will introduce you to your most powerful saboteurs, helping you to recognise their voices and advice they will provide during your career change journey: Free Saboteur Assessment This is an activity I suggest all my clients complete - they find it really useful. Overcoming your Career Change Procrastination... The Power of Process

Procrastination often stems from overwhelming tasks, when your saboteurs convince you moving forward isn't a great idea! Just as learning a new skill breaks down into manageable steps, a career change can be navigated by dividing tasks into smaller, achievable milestones. This approach triggers a sense of accomplishment with each small step completed, propelling you forward. The key to starting a career change is not having the entire plan worked-out before you start. It's simply taking one small step after another. A small step is less overwhelming, and less likely to trigger your saboteurs. And we know how to tackle a small step, it's something we've done before.

Insights from Experts

Experts like Tamar Chansky highlight the brain's struggle with starting tasks lacking immediate rewards ie. a change career, it's a long process when you look at it as 'one big thing'. Dr Barbara Oakley emphasises focusing on the process rather than fixating on the outcome, thus reducing overwhelm.

Embracing a Process-Oriented Mindset

Shifting to a process-oriented mindset activates automated responses in the brain, simplifying complex tasks and reducing resistance to change. Viewing career change as a series of manageable steps fosters clarity and progress. Pick one small step every day that you can complete to move you closer to the change you seek.

Conclusion: Empowering Change

By embracing mental fitness, breaking procrastination habits, and adopting a process-focused approach, you can navigate your career change journey with confidence and clarity. If you need support in this transformation, reach out for guidance and a structured framework to help you to design the work life you desire.

 

Binny Langler champions the radical idea that you can design the work life you want.


By coaching you on how to write the next chapter of your work story with YOU as the hero, spotlighting your unique superpowers.


As Founder & Director of The Inkling Effect, Binny has over 20 years of experience in helping professionals discover and apply their unique strengths to create more fulfilling and meaningful work.


A certified Executive, Gallup Global Strengths Coach & Career Change Coach - with a Masters of Entrepreneurship & Innovation.


Her mission is to be a change catalyst for curious professionals who are seeking a fresh start in their career journey. She uses a fast-track process that reveals your superpowers to enable you to script the next chapter of your work story with intention and purpose. Binny specialises in challenging the status quo, utilising Design-Thinking to empower her clients to embrace their potential and pursue brilliance, whether that be in their current role, or transitioning to something entirely different.

Book a Free Career Strategy Chat HERE


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