Committing to Career Change: What Comes Next?
Things I’ve learned about how to keep the momentum going when the thrill of handing in your notice fades.
Earlier this month, I was asked to be a guest speaker at the social enterprise session of Startup Europe Week in London. The theme of the debate — “How to Turn Your Idea into a Reality” — held some personal significance for me. Exactly one year previously I’d had to look up what ‘social enterprise’ even meant as I wrote my cover letter for a volunteering position in Brazil.
The idea of sitting on a panel of experts including the founders of social startups like Phundee, HelpingB and Volo was, admittedly, daunting. I was there to share my ideas on MVPs, empathy maps and content marketing — words that only entered my vocabulary relatively recently. But if I felt like a novice compared to the rest of the panel, I was fairly confident I had something to say about turning ideas into reality.
Before we get to why, let’s rewind back one year: to when I was on the brink of quitting my job. Back then my priority was my exit strategy. I didn’t have the energy or the willpower to think a month ahead, let alone a year. That’s because (as Cat Stevens didn’t sing) the first step is the hardest. Making the leap from constantly talking about change to actually doing something about it is hard.
But at some stage there’s usually an external factor which enters the equation to tip you past the point of no return. Money or paperwork changes hands: you sign a contract, you hand in your notice, you book your flights. There’s something or someone holding you accountable to your decision which makes it difficult to turn back. You’re now officially committed to change. You strap in and prepare to enjoy the ride…
… and it’s natural to feel like the credits should start rolling there and then as you strut out of the office for the last time, turn up rosy-cheeked at a new assignment or gaze wistfully out of the plane window before takeoff.
Actually, that initial act where you commit to change is only the first of many that you’ll be making over the coming months; years, even. For the multitudes of us who then find ourselves under that dubious umbrella term ‘self-employed’, these subsequent acts of commitment can be even more difficult because we are only accountable to ourselves.
Like most TV programmes, Series 2 is never going to live up to Series 1. People stop watching the second series of “My Career Change” because there are too many boring scenes with you crying in the British Library. No one cares if this week you decide to take on a project that’s scary and difficult and will barely cover your council tax bill instead of something that’s familiar and sorts out your rent. They stopped paying attention after the first season finale.
The decisions you make now on a daily basis might not make good anecdotes but their importance shouldn’t be underestimated. Just as in a long-term relationship these smaller, everyday acts of commitment are not as headline-grabbing or sexy as the first one. But they are crucial if you’re going to keep moving closer towards where you want to be.
It’s this question — how do I keep moving forward? — that earned me a place on the Startup Europe Week panel. One of my biggest freelance projects over the past six months — acting as Project Lead for the Producerati — is entirely dedicated to solving this problem.
The Producerati is a digital community for entrepreneurs focused on group productivity. It began as a side-project of the founder of the Mimic Method, who gave me my first freelance job last year. I joined the Producerati when it was an informal group of 20 people and a month later I was hired to turn it into a business. Since then I’ve managed all operational aspects of the Producerati as we’ve monetized it, acquired new members and developed new services and features.
We market the Producerati as a ‘digital business accelerator’ that helps its members keep their projects moving forward when they lack the infrastructure of the conventional working environment. Aside from free coffee and unlimited access to a printer, the things people really miss when they leave the 9–5 are an accountability structure, a skill-sharing network and a community of people who actually care about what you’re working on.
We’ve created systems to fix this. To take accountability as an example, each week members make public ‘pledges’ to complete a particular goal. At the end of the week, they must submit visual evidence to the rest of the group that the project is complete. Apprentices check that everyone is playing by the rules and delinquent members are named and shamed. Whether it’s down to peer pressure, the gaming element or the mere hint of a nominal deadline, the staggering effect this simple system has on people’s productivity never fails to amaze me.
This is just an example, but it demonstrates an important fact about what it takes to follow through with any big change. There are two sides to it — the psychological and the practical. When you’ve launched yourself into the unknown you need substantial reserves of motivation and resilience to give yourself periodic engine boosts. But it’s the way you work — developing good habits and techniques — that will keep up the momentum between those boosts.
For me at least, a constant psychological challenge has been pushing myself to take on projects where the outcomes are less tangible (new contacts? new skills? a warm fuzzy glow inside?) than others (sweet, wonderful cash). I find the confidence to do this by maintaining an awareness of high-level, longer-term goals and not getting caught up in short-term demands and daily distractions.
On a practical level, I’ve developed good planning and goal-setting habits. I take the time to plan how I structure my days and weeks. In the evenings I set myself a MIT (most important task) for the following day that ideally I’ll complete in the morning. I try to make goals that are realistic and have a defined outcome so that I don’t get overwhelmed by projects that seem endless and insurmountable.
It’s not rocket science, it’s not sexy and it’s not for everyone. But using the Producerati to structure and plan my own projects has probably been the thing that has kept me committed to change over the past six months. I wouldn’t have been able to go from social enterprise newbie to ‘expert speaker’ in a year if I hadn’t been a part of it.
Believe it or not, this isn’t actually a plug for the Producerati. But it’s a good illustration of ways in which you can help yourself to keep going when you feel like you’re floundering. You might only be accountable to yourself, but that doesn’t mean you’re alone. Find your own community of people who are facing similar problems and think of ways hold each other accountable.
Because it is hard. Over the past year I’ve found out that jumping off the ladder is only the beginning. When the exhilaration of taking that first big leap fades, when the self-doubt creeps in, when your bank balance is low and your anxiety levels are high — you need to keep moving forwards, otherwise why the hell else are you putting yourself through all of it?
Every so often you’ll have milestones that neatly quantify and demonstrate progress — a new client, a new contract, a new job. Most of the time though, progress is hard to measure and even harder to recognise. That doesn’t mean it’s not there. You can move forward every day by making small acts of commitment to change. They won’t be anything to write home about, but they count.
