How to reinvent yourself at work

The start of the New Year is a great time for a fresh start. But
change is tough.
When I sold my real estate business, which I had built for 30
years, I was unprepared for the personal challenges I’d need to
overcome. Reinventing myself in a new career was so much
harder than I expected. If you’ve been dreaming about totally
changing your career, here are a few things that will help you
along the way.
1. There’s no such thing as a total reinvention.
The best you can do is “repackage” yourself!
When I sold my real estate business, I needed to figure out who I
wanted to be in my next chapter, so I sat down and wrote a list
of every job I ever held and what I liked and disliked about each.
There were 23 different jobs on my list and to my surprise, I
found I liked the same two things–I love an audience and I’m
really good at marketing! So my list of potential new careers that
could build on my strengths was a short one. I decided I was
either going to start a PR company or an advertising firm or I
was going to make myself a talent on TV. I took a shot at TV
because I knew it would give me my biggest audience and I
would have the chance to market myself instead of a whiny
client. You’ll have a much greater chance at success and
happiness in your new career if you know what you like and
what you’re really good at and if you can manage do a lot more
of it. Remember, you can repackage yourself but you can’t
change your wiring.
2. Expect to be lonely.
When I sold my business, a major piece of my identity went with
it. I missed my 1,000 adoring brokers and my management team
that had become my family. I was no longer part of a work
community— of course I missed the parties and good times, but I
even missed the endless stream of emails that used to be the
bane of my existence. In my search for connecting with a new
community of people, I plugged into the social media world and
found that Twitter and Facebook made me friends with a whole
range of new people and they became my stand-in community. I
built myself a circle of support.
3. You have to reinvent yourself in stages.
Successful reinvention can’t happen overnight. So instead of
trying to reach my end goal as a business expert on TV, I built
my new persona in small steps. I started as an occasional on-air
guest on local TV, then got paid as a real estate contributor on
morning talk shows, and finally landed as a Shark/Investor on
ABC as a business expert. Landing your first gig in your new
space will serve as confirmation that you’re on the right track
and will increase your confidence so you’re able to reach your
end goal.
4. There’s no such thing as part-time.
Even if you’re a pro at the top of your game in your industry,
once you switch to a different field you’re starting from scratch.
Building a successful new you takes the same long hours as
your first career and you’ll still have to give it 150% of your time.
At first, I thought I could give half my energy to reinventing
myself and the other half to having fun, but it didn’t work out
that way. I had to work just as hard at building my second career
as I had my first and this time I didn’t have the advantage of
youth.
Change is tough and you can always come up with 100 reasons
not to do something or quit in the process, but reaching a goal
that you bravely fought and won, is invigorating and a worthy
reason for doing it.