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  • Trusting Yourself to Choose a New Direction After a Lifetime of Mistakes
  • Posted on February 28, 2012 by Jennifer Gresham

You know, rationally, that everyone makes mistakes.

But it hasn’t just been one mistake.

It’s been one mistake after another.  Doozies.  Pursuing the wrong career, trusting the wrong person, buying a house at the wrong time, wasting time on the wrong opportunities.

And you just can’t do it again.  Every decision feels enormous and risky. You’ve been blindsided by what felt like good, rational choices in the past, and your confidence just can’t afford another hit.

You dream of a better life, but the fear is crippling.

I know because I’ve been there.  I attended the Air Force Academy to escape a domineering father, only to discover the Air Force wasn’t much better.  I was so devastated when the man I thought I was going to marry ran off with someone else, I hooked up with a bipolar man who killed my cat.  I made a series of decisions all with the goal of getting my Ph.D., only to discover I didn’t like graduate school.

There were times that for all the outward success, I felt like a complete disaster.  I can remember sitting on the porch in the dead of winter one night, feeling so self-destructive and down on myself, I didn’t want to go back inside.

Years later, when it came time to leave the security of my job (along with all my retirement benefits), I really, really didn’t want to be wrong again.  I’m still haunted by the idea that maybe I don’t have it figured out, that this new path I’ve taken will also turn out to be a wrong turn.

I’m not a fan of list posts, but the truth is, there’s no silver bullet solution to this problem.  There’s no mental switch you can flip that suddenly turns you into a confident, competent decision maker.

But over time, I have discovered a series of strategies that can help.  Here are 15 ideas to get in touch with your inner voice, get your life back on track, and to harness the confidence to keep pursuing your dreams.

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  • How to Stay Motivated When You Feel Like Giving Up
  • Posted on February 22, 2012 by Jennifer Gresham

When you were younger, you thought you could do almost anything.

You imagined not just becoming a doctor, but curing cancer.  You didn’t just day-dream about starting a business, but creating inventions that solved big problems.  You didn’t just see yourself as a poet, but the bard who reignited modern culture’s interest in verse.  (Okay, maybe that last one was just me.)

Over time, you reset your expectations of the possible.  Why?

First, friends and family urged you to be “realistic.”  Then the self-doubt crept in.  You became more cautious while also raising your standards.

After all, if you’re going to do something amazing, you have to be amazing, don’t you?

Finally, you realized the whole thing was taking a lot longer than you’d thought it would.  You were tired and your motivation was quickly sapping.

Finally you told yourself: who needs those silly dreams anyway?

When I put together the self-study version of my No Regrets Career Academy last year, I tried to answer all the questions about how to choose a career that I could conceive of in the material itself.

But the most common question I got back wasn’t about how to choose a new career at all.  What most people wanted to know was: how can I stay motivated to keep going on my quest?

In trying to answer one of the most important questions of their lives, too many wanted to just give up.

The problems that caused them to give up on their dream careers the first time were the same issues that caused them to quit the second, third, or fourth time around.  The problem wasn’t that they couldn’t dream big (though that got harder each time they gave up), but that they couldn’t sustain their efforts on a project that felt so huge.

In this post, I discuss the simple solution that’s helping my clients get over the hump, so to speak.  And why I realized I needed a dose of my own medicine.

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  • A Girlfriend’s Career Advice: Love It or Leave It
  • Posted on February 14, 2012 by Jennifer Gresham

You keep telling yourself things will get better.

It was never perfect, sure, but what is?  You figured the irritations and self-doubt would go away, that you could change things with time.  After all, every relationship has its growing pains.

Except the feelings don’t go away.  They get worse.

You feel impatient, restless, and sometimes, yes, a little depressed.  When you’re being honest, you admit this isn’t the life you imagined.

Just when you’re about to give up, something happens that reminds you why you fell in love in the first place.  You think, “I just have to hang in there and give this a chance.”

Over time the spark begins to dim.  Again.

If we were talking romantic relationships, most of us would probably advise a friend in this situation to just move on already.  If you’ve been at it for years and you’re still unsure, what makes you think it’s going to get any better? There are lots of other fish in the sea, as the saying goes.

When it comes to careers, many of us fail to find the courage in our professional lives that we possess in our personal lives.  It seems so … different.

But is it?

Turns out, as your friend and career advisor, I’m going to give you the same advice: love it or leave it. But I’ll also do one better.

I’ll show you how to choose.

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