Our last blog covered an important aspect of discovering who you are – your strengths, values, character etc. This can be extremely helpful to see what you “bring to the table” in terms of finding your encore.
Now it’s time to take another step inside – to look at what is most important to you, what has been something you have always wanted to do, what motivates and interests you? In the Encore Career Handbook, Marci Alboher talks about the key question: what do you want to do? This means stepping away from what people expect you to be or what you think you should be doing. She suggests examining your motivations by asking yourself what you want an encore career to provide: to be engaged, to stimulate your mind, to earn income, to help others, to work on an important social issue. There are many more possible answers to that question- so let your mind go free. Check out this great short clip that explains the Encore Career Handbook.
Two other activities in the Encore Career Handbook focus on what issues pull you in (children, homeless, women, environment, community issues, etc.) and what roles appeal to you?” (advocacy, policy, coaching, teaching, marketing, leading, etc.). Another activity that I used in my own discovery process was to examine all the jobs and projects that I had worked on in my life and identify which tasks, or characteristics did I really enjoy and which did I NOT enjoy. This helped me to see the reasons I had lost some of my passion for my consulting business.
Leslie Granston in a recent blog on AARP’s great new website, “Work Reimagined”, talks about five key questions to consider. She also makes a great point that reinvention does not always mean leaving your job. The possibilities for reinventions are endless! You could circle back to a job you had a while ago or elevate a hobby or interest into a career, or change the focus of your current job or follow a new interest.
On Friday, I attended a great leadership conference sponsored by the Non Profit Leadership Center. I heard a fantastic, inspirational speaker, John Acuff. He talked specifically about our generation searching for meaning or encore. One of his great quotes really hit home for me. “Finding your dream job (encore) may not be about discovery but rather recovery. It’s an act of rescuing something from the past that you loved but you lost.” It is another great example of how you can go about doing that internal work.
I leave you today with one more great inspirational thought from John Acuff’s latest book, “Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work That Matters”. He says the starting line is all you can control. It may not all become clear what the finish line looks like but the only way you can ever get there is to start. One baby step at a time….
SO LET’S GET STARTED!
What are you going to do to start your Encore Journey? Stay tuned for the upcoming posts that help with the Identify Stage. Don’t forget to pass on my posts to people who may be wondering what is next in their life.
Bevan Rogel
Encore Tampa Bay