Feeling like Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada? Do you have your own Miranda Priestly? Or are you certain you’re on a career path that doesn’t fit your values? Andy walked away from becoming the next Miranda without another job in the wings. How can you avoid this by reinventing your career or find your passion in work again?

Pamela Mitchell, CLC, is the CEO and Chief Vision Officer for The Reinvention Institute™. I stumbled upon her website, finding useful resources for those of you, who are thinking about reinventing your career or find your passion in work. Check out Mitchell’s Reinvention Shop. Mitchell discusses the ten principles that you’ll need to know before you begin reinventing your career.

10 Principles of Career Reinvention

Below are the highlights of her paper with my commentary; however, I recommend downloading products for more information.

1. Understand that in order to be truly happy, your career must serve your life: early in our career, we often don’t have many choices in our first jobs like taking a job with a huge banking institution, having to move across the country so you can participate in their leadership program. These are sacrifices we make to get our foot in the door. However, over time, we realize that our careers may not be serving our lives, so a change is necessary. For example, some people work 18-hour days and are a parent with one child with another on the way, leaving their spouse to take of the kids. Is this working? Is it sustainable? Is it serving their lives? Doubtful.
2. Release the myths and understand the signifiers you’ve attached to your new career: status and money typically drives us in our career. Yes, passion fits in there somewhere; however, sometimes we’re caught up in managing our way up the ladder with all the privileges that should accompany it. At some point, are these things really worth it? Some people would think I was crazy to leave a VP job in November 2006, but this career choice served my life, aligning my work with my personal values.
3. Be willing to start before you have an end goal in mind: sometimes, you realize you need career reinvention. You just have to jump right in, rather than wait for the perfect career reinvention plan. Are you tired to waiting for your next career move to cross your path, then start networking and meeting with friends as you look for ideas for the next career move.
4. Get used to living outside your comfort zone: meeting new people and creating a new network is hard, especially for those of us who are introverts. Learn to be a selectively extrovert. Let’s face it, some of us aren’t energized by meeting new people or going out of comfort zone, but we can learn to cope and maybe even shine as extroverts. For example, three years ago, I wasn’t comfortable going to events in Hollywood or walking a red carpet, but today, it’s something I can do without stressing about. You learn how to channel a different version of yourself by being “on.”
5. Let go of your old identity: I’m a VP of Marketing. I’m a Product Manager. I’m an actor, I’m a seagull. Titles and our jobs define us. Changing up our identity is scary and hard to do. One helpful tip is to come up with a new elevator speech about your new identity, so you can quickly rattle it off when you’re asked what you do. See “4 Steps to a Great Elevator Speech by Dave Lorenzo at Career Intensity” for ideas.
6. Learn to tune in and listen to of yourself first before responding to the world: you will have too many options available to you, so the trick is to listen to yourself, to see if it’s good for you. Don’t do something just because it will be impressive to others. Remember, it has to serve you and your life goals.
7. Realize that your ideas will shift, and be open to experimentation: you may have hundreds of ideas that sound good for your career reinvention. The true test will be which one feels the easiest and “right” to take action on. If you can’t easily take action and you keep walking in circles on the idea, then chances are it’s not a right fit.
8. Be willing to pursue new contacts: meeting new people is hard for some us, but worthwhile, especially if you reinventing yourself. You need access the people that can help you with your new goals. Don’t 70% of jobs result from people’s network? How can you leverage your network or other people’s network. Remember, you have to follow through if you use someone else’s network. If you fail to action, after a friend sets you up with one of their contacts, this makes your friend look bad.
9. Accept that on some levels you will be starting over: Clean slates are fun, but daunting. However, it won’t be as scary like it was when you first started your previous career. This time, you’ll have your tools and templates. You’ll what your core competencies (what you’re really good at) are. You’ll have your interests. You’ll have your life goals. Add all these things together, chances are this is more information you had than when you first started your old career.
10. Celebrate your successes along the way instead of holding out for the end goal: Define some milestones that you’ll most likely hit along the journey such as “contacted X number of new contacts,” ”brainstormed likely industries or job titles,” or “created a board of friends and former coworkers”. Take the time to celebrate moments like these so you can motivated.

Discover your next career move after using this ten-point career reinvention plan. If Andy Sachs can walk away from becoming the next Miranda without another job in the wings, the imagine how successful you’ll be when you walk onto a career step that  you actually planned.

Recommended Reading List

• Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change
• Getting Unstuck: How Dead Ends Become New Paths
• Getting Unstuck

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