Getting your self-belief back on-track

Many people will say that a change in your career is not necessarily a walk in the park, that it certainly has its highs and lows and that we need to work to manage our own morale during the process, to seek to stay positive and think positively. Except that for many, that's not easy.

So why is it that when we lose our jobs, or make a career change, do we find it difficult managing the knock-backs?

Why the difficulty?

To begin with, the challenges have a lot to do with the fact that as humans we don't like change and especially when the change was unsought. People can feel very hurt when told they are losing their jobs. They can in effect go through a grieving process, a cycle well-described by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: put simply, people go through an initial shock, then a time of minimalising the impact of what has happened, followed by a more thorough-going emotional response such as anger, upset and depression, a period of adjustment in which they first fight and then come to terms with what has happened. In this process they reach a point of acknowledgement, acceptance and letting go, which in turn leads to a new sense of purpose and direction characterised by more effective action-taking. However hardened you might be to this process, it can still take you unawares. Thus people are often surprised by how it has affected them. It is not unusual for me to be working with people who in the early stages have a lot of anger to unload about their erstwhile employer and how they were treated, or who burst into tears - a very healthy clearing process!

Even if you are deliberately leaving your job, you can still experience a period of emotional adjustment. Initial euphoria can be followed by a period which can seem like a bit of a roller-coaster. After all, you are moving into unfamiliar territory, where there are no clear sign-posts and where you probably have to carve out your own direction, establish your credibility, win acceptance, learn new skills, and start working in different environments. And you might all the while secretly be questioning what you are doing. It takes time to build up confidence. People talk about this phase of going through the learning curve as one of "conscious incompetence", before you reach "conscious competence".

During this adjustment, people can find that what they now think about their ability and their effectiveness was not what they had thought before, especially if they are going in a new direction. Over time they might start to question themselves. One way that this might show up can be in the initial difficulties in getting a new job. Some have never had to do it before; others might have succeeded at it in the past but in current economic circumstances are finding it much more of a challenge than they had expected. It can be a real test when one gets constant rejections or difficult interviews.
How change affects self-belief

Changes in your career, whether sought by you or imposed by a change in your organisation, can have a major impact on your belief in yourself, in your self-worth, your ability and confidence. "Change resilience" isn't something that is taught; we usually have to learn it. And we have to find ways to deal with potential knocks to our self-belief.

At core, self-belief has a lot to do with our own negative programming that we grew up with, which we had learned to manage but gets exposed when really tested. An example of this might be an inner thought that "I'm not good enough" or "not worthy" or "people don't like me". I take the position in career coaching that these thoughts are not who we are. They are simply beliefs we have taken on board when we were too small to know differently. And beliefs can be challenged and changed.
What is to be done?

The important first step is to recognise that you are crucially feeling down because your belief in yourself is being challenged, and that the challenge is being done by you. Yes, really! It seems like it is others, because that is how we react to what happens, which is pure habit, learning. And such habits can be unlearned. The feeling is the important clue, because unless we stop it, the feeling can govern how we think and act.

The first step is to Catch it, to notice that it is happening, to become aware. It is a bit like another part of you seeing what you are doing to yourself and pointing it out: "here I go again, doing my number". I don't know how you might say it, but this is very important, in fact utterly crucial. I call that part the Witness. Here you are interrupting the process, the unconscious flow of your mind where you don't want to go. It can take practice, mind you. You might carry on "being on it", caught up in your negative state or whatever, until it has really sunk in. So do be patient with yourself.

Now, at this point, your will starts to engage with what is happening. The will is very important in managing personal change and development. It enables the next step to happen. The second step is Challenge it, to question it, eg. say to yourself, "Don't go there", "This is not who I am", "This is not what I choose to be" and "I am more than this". Here you are now starting to distance a part of you that values yourself from what is occurring inside you. And somewhere inside there is a part that values yourself. If you can't feel that part, then try kidding your mind, for example by saying, "I love, value and appreciate myself". The unconscious mind doesn't know the difference between fact and fiction. Here you are in effect making a choice.

The third is to Change it, to deliberately adopt a new strategy, a new approach. This is where you need to plan ways to change what it is that you are doing so that you are adopting a more positive, purposeful approach, and then to take action.
Career change is about taking action

The career changer, the job seeker, needs to develop effective strategies and actions to enhance their prospects of creating a new direction for themselves. As you can read elsewhere, there is a host of methodologies you can pick up. Study books on career change, network with other career changers, model yourself on people who have done it, build up your skills, become knowledgeable, learn from your experience, adapt as you learn - all these are well-known, and there are more. But, when you are down and are doubting yourself, you particularly need to revisit these approaches and plan again, change it and get on with it. Taking action puts energy outwards into the environment. It moves things forward, away from the negative state. As I said, the unconscious mind does not know the difference between fact and fiction. So, if you start doing things differently, you will start to believe it. Then as you get on with it, your state will shift and so too will your perspective. When you feel differently, everything takes on a new perspective. Then you find yourself thinking and crucially believing differently. This is Changing it. What you will have done is shifted your state, and empowered yourself, taken power.

And career change is all about taking the power

Plan, action, review: the career changer needs to be in action. Regularly review your action plan. Look at what is missing. Do research to find new ways forward. Learn from your experience. Move forward in small steps. Focus on one thing at a time. All these are typical of the action phase and again you can read about them and others in the books on career change.

This self-management strategy that I have described is what we call The Three C's: Catch it, Challenge it, Change it. It sounds simple, but you will need to practice it. It take time to change habits. We can change what we believe about ourselves. What matters is the decision to do it and to work on it.

John Gloster-Smith is an accredited Life and Executive Coach who has coached career changers for 17 years. He is accredited as a coach with The Association for Coaching, is also an accredited group facilitator, and holds a Post-Graduate certificate in Education. He managed his own career change out of education and into coaching and leading groups, both in business and with individuals, training in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology and NLP along the way.

Published on the Careershifters' website, 2009.