How to pivot?
I have been asking myself lots of career questions. Perhaps you've asked yourself these questions to?
What does a career look like?
Who am I really serving?
How might I do more?
Why must I follow the linear path?
What if my life was a bunch of questions?
What is a career for?
To serve others and help them solve their problems so that they'll be more effective. In turn, the people you help will give you a means to sustain yourself.
Perhaps a career is nothing more than a string of projects that grow in complexity? With each new project comes the growth of new skills which can be leveraged for the next project.
I tend to enjoy this thinking because it gives me the freedom to be open to new ideas and new jobs. But, not everyone likes it. In fact, it can be hard for employers to see someone like me as someone who can help them. It's hard to pivot.
How to effectively pivot?
Think like a marketer.
What skills have we acquired through our work can be leveraged to help someone else? And,
How might we show the people we seek to serve that we have the skills they need in a way they understand?
In my experience, the challenge is never "will I find a job?" The challenge really is, "will I find the right job?" And you will find the right job when you know how to answer the top two questions.
Questions
Questions create the tension needed for action. They encourage us to think blue sky, focus in, or question the foundations upon which we do what we do.
In business, you see leaders more and more trying to ask better questions. But in life, what you and I live each day, we don't see it often enough.
Your life will be a collection of questions. What if I went to law school? What if I could be a teacher? How might I create a community? Don't stop asking yourself these questions - pursue them. See where the exploration take you.