Stuck in a good salary and limiting beliefs!

Careershifter question

By human106 on 21 April 2008 at 11:14

What's your personal and career background?
I'm 37 and used to consider myself quite creative. I'm now a planning manager in a very large company and with a good salary.

What's your current work situation?
In a word, frustration. I hate all the red tape and bureacracy. I can't stand the thought that "this is it for the rest of my life". I hate "office" people who take it all so seriously. The only part of the job I enjoy is the problem solving element from time to time which becomes less frequent it seems. The money I earn is preventing me from leaving as I am terrible with money and seem to need a lot more of it than more sensible people.

Where ideally would you like to be in twelve month's time?
Somewhere where I actually feel like getting up in the morning and my input is valued. Preferably still with a good income.

Where are you currently most stuck?

I have absolutely no idea what I want to do? All the "interesting" jobs seem to be badly paid.

ShiftDoctor answer

By Jessica McGrego... on 28 May 2008 at 21:35

Absolutely no idea? Or is it that you can't see how to make an idea work? Often we dismiss ideas before we've even given them a chance because our limiting beliefs and decisions don't even allow us to explore any ideas as they are outside our normal frame of reference.

Maybe it is time to challenge some of these beliefs. Are there people in the world who have really interesting jobs and are well paid? I can think of one - me! Start to take off the blinkers and see that in fact many people have interesting jobs and are well paid for what they do. The ones who aren't are the ones who believe that they can't be.

Our world is created by what we believe. We literally filter out information in line with our beliefs, values, memories, attitudes, and the way we see the world. Over 2 million bits of information come towards us every second of every day - passes through all our internal filters and only approx 134 bits get through. That's a lot left out!

Now we need these filters or we would go mad with all that information bombarding our senses, but the good news is that once we become aware of the filters we have in place, particularly our beliefs, we can start to literally see the world in a different way.

So I recommend that your first step is to look at your beliefs and get ready to challenge them. For a start, pretend that you can have a great job and be well paid. Literally act as if it were true. Then start to look around you and see what opportunities might be available if it were true.

You don't have to know how you will achieve it, the first step to any change is deciding on the 'what'. What would you enjoy doing? What sector interests you? What kind of people would you like to work with? What has caught your eye in the past? Who do you know with an interesting job? What are you passionate about? Once you allow yourself to even think along these lines then new ideas can come and you can start to follow new lines of research and exploration.

I also recommend you do some work around changing your decisions and beliefs. They only came about in the first place because you had an experience that caused you to assign meaning to it. If you've assigned a meaning once you can change that at a deep level. There are many modalities that can help, NLP, neurological re-patterning and different kinds of belief change work.

In the book Illusions by Richard Bach there is a saying in the handbook that says "Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours". If we hold on too tight to how we see the world then that is what we will get. Henry Ford said "Whether you think you can or you can't, you are right".

Start to challenge your beliefs - those are what are getting in the way of you creating a job that grabs your interest, that motivates you to want to go to work everyday and do the best you can.

As for the money, the practical side, your solution is in what you wrote. Get a handle on what you spend. Write a money diary every day for two weeks. Every penny you spend even down to a cup of coffee. Write out all your standing orders and household expenses and become absolutely aware of where your money goes. Once you've done that you will see exactly where you are squandering it and that gives you back choice. Step up and take back the responsibility and you will find you have many more choices that you thought possible.

Your life is your choice, and choices arise from the actions we take and the things we choose to believe. Start to work on changing these and no longer will you feel resigned and have to think 'this is it for the rest of my life?" Instead you will begin to use that creativity that you know you have, to create the life you both want and deserve.

Jessica offers a free introductory session to discuss how she can help you identify and make the move you want; if you would like to arrange a time for her to call you please email her at jessica@jessicamcgregorjohnson.com or call +34 958 639 593. For more information visit http://www.jessicamcgregorjohnson.com/

She works internationally as a Life Coach enabling people to follow their dream and gain fulfilment in every area of life. Using not only the traditional coaching tools of conversation, exploration and creating accountability she also adds in powerful processes of Christopher Howard Results Technologies® and Neurological Re-patterningTM that enables change to take place both internally and externally. She has worked with many career shifters and particularly enjoys using her own life experience, including her time in the corporate world, to support those making whatever move they choose.


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By Yasmine32 on 6 June 2008 at 20:16

I'm 32 years old, work in Corporate Finance for a very large multinational conglomorate and want to completely change my working life. After A-levels in English and Art, I was then offered an unconditional place at Art College to do a Foundation in Art, My father died of cancer, I struggled to complete the course but did with good results. Soon after I suffered from a nervous breakdown at 18 and slowly recovered after seeing a clinical psychologist and then had to find work. I wanted to be creative and got a job working in a beautiful florist shop and spent a year surrounded by beautiful flowers, i loved the work but the money was not going to set me up for life, so i left and went on to study Interior Design and Decoration at one of the best Art colleges in Europe, I enjoyed most of the course but found studying in London with very little money really hard and realised how many rich people there were who had it so much easier, had connections and more support than i did. The teachers weren't that encouraging so I soon lost heart and gave it up. I then got a job in sales and enjoyed the money for a year but soon realised it was not a long term prospect and got bored. I temped for a while and then decided to go abroad and learn to teach yoga, spent 4 weeks training in the Carribean and then came back and set up some classes, started teaching 3 times a week and ended up with a waitng list. It was hard to keep disciplined though, stick to a strict diet and exercise everyday not to mention financing rent, food etc. I soon decided I needed a proper job but with no degree I had to work as a PA as I knew I could easily work my way up the ladder quickly if I was good. So that's what I've spent the last 5 to 6 years doing and it hasn't been as easy as I thought. Working to make someone else more successful has been quite soul destroying, you end up doing alot of work for not much thanks and I had to start at the bottom and take jobs that paid very little. Working in an office day after day is just so draining, being a PA you hardly leave your desk and something else I've found is that other functions in businesses have a poor perception of what a PA actually does. They think we just push paper and make telephone calls so I'm increasingly finding it all frustrating and yes I get paid a pretty good salary now but at what cost. I'm hating my job, Finance is dull and so are the people and I want to get out and really do something but don't know what...I'm also married now and have responsibilities to my marriage and concerned I'm just wasting my life...

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