S2 Episode 16: Building Confidence in Career Transitions

Have you ever found yourself yearning for a career transition but holding back due to fear of the unknown? Or are you frustrated with the Generation X stereotype of sticking to one job for decades? Urvina and Anjali from UKAN Coaching are in the studio to share their insightful journey from corporate jobs to founding their own coaching business. They expose the challenges Generation X faces and highlight the importance of tuning into your body’s signals for a more fulfilling career path.

Navigating a career transition is never easy. It requires a clear understanding of what you want and what you don't want careful planning, and honest financial discussions. Urvina and Anjali break down these steps, sharing critical strategies that eased their career transitions. They emphasize the importance of using past experiences as a stepping stone and having a clear understanding of the potential benefits to smooth the transition path.

Imposter syndrome is a widespread phenomenon, especially during career transitions. Irvina and Anjali tackle this head-on, sharing tips on building confidence and celebrating every victory, big or small. They further explore gaining clarity in objectives, leveraging skills and strengths to your advantage, and reflection to identify talents and capabilities. If a career transition is on your horizon, or if you’ve already embarked on this journey, this enlightening conversation with Urvina and Anjali is a must-listen.

About Urvina & Anjali & UKAN Coaching:
Urvina & Anjali are co-founders of UKAN Coaching specializing in aligning mid-professional women to careers they want and enjoy with confidence.

Urvina has worked for 27+ years within the National Health Service as a Therapeutic Radiographer of which 15+ years was as a Clinical Learning Facilitator working with students and staff towards their career and personal development.

Anjali has worked in financial services for 15+ years spending the majority of her time training, developing, mentoring, and coaching teams whilst navigating organization structures and culture to enhance her own career.

Their approach is based on their personal journey and experiences within their respective careers, using their own systems to transform careers from stagnation to ascension.

FREE GIFT from UKAN Coaching:
Free Career Complacency Assessment - get it here.

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Transcript

Christina Smith: 1:00

Well, welcome back to the Inviting Shift podcast, where we talk about having a joyful and confident midlife, and one of those huge areas in our life is like what do we do right? What do we do in our career? How do we know when it's time to shift careers, if we're feeling a little stagnant? And today we have Urvina and Anjali here to help us really start thinking about these career transitions. Is it good for me to transition right now or is this a time where I just need to have more clarity? Maybe and they are from UKAN coaching and from the UK, so thank you for joining us from across the pond.

Urvina Shah: 1:47

Thank you, Christina, for having us both on.

Anjali Gudhka: 1:50

Yeah, great, really excited about this.

Christina Smith: 1:53

Yes, I am too, so tell us a little bit more about your journeys so that we can understand how it is that you got to helping people with their career transitions.

Urvina Shah: 2:04

Oh, I make a start. So I actually worked in the National Health Service here for 27 years as a therapeutic radiographer that's the treatment of cancer of which in the last 15 years I was a practice educator, so did a lot of already mentoring and coaching and all of those wonderful things that you can do to help people develop. And the last, during the end of it, though, I really had no progression opportunities and what came to a head was two things. One was that my role went under consultation, which meant here that it was going to disband and my role is not going to exist, and all my roles and responsibilities were going to be given to that junior person. So of course I had the opportunity to go for that new role, but of course I wasn't going to have been a manager for so long, or I could use I could see if there were other similar roles within the organization at large, couldn't find anything.

Urvina Shah: 3:09

And then what also happened is my daughter, one of three children and one of my kids. My daughter has learning difficulties and she was at an age where she was transitioning into 17, 18, 19 years. We're thinking about her future, her career as well, and in that moment I thought, okay, I have all these skills with me. I don't want to work in an organization that doesn't value me anymore. What can I do with that? And also, how can I leave a legacy for my daughter? And that's how I decided that I needed to step away and I can help so many other women outside of this one organization. And that's how my journey started around, actually at the age of 50.

Christina Smith: 3:58

Oh, wow, good for you. Big transition in the middle of life, right yeah?

Anjali Gudhka: 4:04

Yeah, so for me. So this is Anjali. So for me this transition actually started about in real. It started about three years ago after COVID. So prior to COVID I had been quite interested in learning coaching skills, but to use in the workplace. So my background is I'm a finance professional and I've always worked in the corporate sector and as I was going up the ladder I was getting more managerial responsibilities, there was more interaction with more senior people and I didn't know I was losing my confidence and I wanted to see if I could build my confidence and also use coaching skills to be a better manager or a good manager. So I trained as a coach.

Anjali Gudhka: 5:00

But post COVID I was feeling quite burnt out and I decided to take a career break in trying to figure out what my next step is going to be. I'd been working for 17 years in the corporate sector and I was kind of not sure whether I wanted to continue in finance. So as I trained as an executive coach and Urvina was almost at the same time in her journey, it made sense for us to kind of get together, put our resources together and form UCAN coaching to help others through their career path, you know, and also it helped me figure what I wanted to do and how I wanted to transition, or see where I kind of fit in into the picture, so that that led me into UCan coaching as well. Beautiful.

Christina Smith: 5:57

I love how it started, with you like just wanting to become a better manager, and then you had these skills and you were like, well, maybe where I am is actually not working, and you got the skills to get the clarity that you really wanted, which I think is where people really struggle, because we can get into this. I don't like this job, so I need to change it and then, like we can change, one of my other coaches says we change one pile of shit for another pile of shit.

Christina Smith: 6:27

Excuse, my language but it's like you know, I just don't like my manager, so I get a new job. Well, now I don't like my coworker, right, so it's, it's more. It's not about these like little tiny things that are happening, but it's a little bit more than that, right? Like for me, it was crying on the way to my corporate job every day for a year before. I was like maybe something's wrong.

Christina Smith: 6:50

Maybe I should be doing something different and so we're having this conversation. So hopefully, if you're listening to this crying on the way to work, you're going to see that as a sign and not as something that something that's wrong with you because that's what I would, I would tell myself is like Christina, you should be grateful. You can pay your bills, you have a house like this is more, you have more stability than you ever had. When you were little, like I, and I used to say what's wrong with me that I can't just be grateful, and it was because I believe that you know my body was calling me to something more. There was a higher potential, a different potential that I wanted. But career transitions can be really challenging for this Gen X, for generation, because we were taught by the boomers that we need to go get a job, get a paycheck, get a pension right.

Christina Smith: 7:48

And you just do that for 40 or 50 years and you're going to be fine.

Urvina Shah: 7:54

Yeah, that was the way it was. You're going to be in the hard work. Work hard and you will earn the money. You learn the respect. You will be successful. Hard work equated to success.

Anjali Gudhka: 8:06

And loyalty pays. You've got to, you know, also stay with the same or, you know, if you've been in the same organization for such a long time, it shows that you've got a character. You know that you've lasted that long, whether you like it or not.

Christina Smith: 8:24

Right, whether you're miserable or, like you know, binge drinking on the weekends because you hate your job so much, it doesn't matter, as long as you're getting through it right. And I think I mean that's a very boomer attitude of being like survivors. And what I love about these new generations is they're giving us better ideas. Like I have a daughter in her 20s and like the way that she transitions is like so much smoother, like she just trusts it's all going to work out and it does. And like to me it's like wow, like I always thought, yeah, I've worked really hard, you almost had to stress yourself out in order to get there. And for her it's just like they figure it out in a different way.

Christina Smith: 9:08

You know, and I also have friends who have kids, who they start their own businesses at like 20. Like I have a friend who her daughter collects exotic plants and then, you know, breeds them that's not the right word, probably and then, like sells them for so much money. And I'm like I never would have thought of that. But like these younger kids seem to be kids in their 20s. Whatever they seem to be giving us our generation like more ideas and more flexibility and possibility, like I'm opening my eyes to new. Wow, what if I could actually make money off of art or something right Like, which was a big no-no when we were growing up?

Urvina Shah: 9:56

A different breed. But yeah, they are and they have more a sense of adventure. They have the. They will take more risks, they will gather so much in their toolbox to be able to move onwards, upwards, outwards, and they can do it much more easily because of that. And there are some disadvantages, I see, but mostly I love, I with you, I'm with you on that. I love their energy about that, you know, and and they have. They see the world so differently.

Anjali Gudhka: 10:31

You know it's not so tunnel vision, yeah, and it's more about that experience as opposed to just getting pigeonholed into one particular type of role or a title or a profession. You know it's, it's, it's amazing to to see that transition, but it's also what then leads to what you know, those who are in their mid career, so to speak, becoming the sandwich generation, almost, because we're living in a world that is, you know, on both, both ends You've. It's quite difficult, then to transition, yeah.

Christina Smith: 11:14

Yeah, but I love that they're just opening our perspective. And I know that midlife brings its own unique challenges, right? Not only do we have the perimenopause and the menopause going on, so we're already like thrown off a little bit. But there's a lot of things changing. A lot of our kids are, you know, getting up and out of the house, so now we're empty nesters and we have a little bit more space.

Christina Smith: 11:37

So I know for some of my clients, even though they've been working the same type of job for the last 15 years, once their kids leave, they suddenly feel like they have more space and possibility and they have the time to explore a little bit more and really start questioning themselves, like, is this what I want to do for the rest of my life? And I think that this is so, so important Because I want to talk about some of the blocks that keep us from exploring more. I think that that's so important. I know that for some of us because old women, old women are not valued in our society that we're afraid that maybe I'm too old to get another job or do something new. Maybe, you know, maybe I don't have skills to do that because I've only been using this one skill. So what happens when women come up to you and have these blocks to exploring more?

Anjali Gudhka: 12:43

Yeah, it's quite interesting because everyone's got their own thing that stops them. So a lot of the clients that we've seen in that phase, in a lot of instances there's two things that come out. One is fear. So there's either a fear of change or a fear of just not knowing what they can transition to. And the second thing that comes up the most is am I good enough? Like, what are my? Like? I've always done this for, like my whole life. Like, what else can I do? There's nothing out there that I can do apart from what I've been doing.

Anjali Gudhka: 13:30

And it's that pot process that we work on to start shifting the narrative, to help them get the clarity of okay, where else, what else can you do. Because at that stage, as you mentioned, you know they're in a different phase of their lives, they've got more room. But also it's a point where maybe the finances aren't as important anymore. Maybe it's more about is my work making an impact? Is there like meaning to what I'm doing? And it doesn't have to be a radical shift, it doesn't have to be a complete jump from one profession to another. It could be just finding something along the lines of what you've done. And you're right, there's more time to explore at that stage.

Anjali Gudhka: 14:19

But because they don't know where to start and they've been doing the same thing for such a long time, it takes some assistance from what we call objective people like we're not in their lives so we can help point out to say you missed this or you're not exploring this. But you've spoken about this quite a lot, you seem quite interested on this site and it starts unblocking those stories or the narratives that they've been telling themselves. So I'm too old to change, it's too late for me. There's nothing that can save me from this routine that we've set up. You know I've got to just get on. It's another 10 more years to retirement or 20 more years to retirement. I can do it. I can do it. And it's getting them to change that, to say you don't have to suffer for that long anymore.

Christina Smith: 15:13

I love that so much because you just saying that made me want to cringe. Like I can get through another 10 or 20 years. That's 10 or 20 years man. Yeah, that's a lot of time.

Urvina Shah: 15:25

It is a lot, and you may also find that women, men even, but we mostly see women who have been in a profession, in a career for a long time. They know completely and at that point where they're starting to question this all and they know what they don't want now, but they often don't know what they do want.

Christina Smith: 15:48

Yeah, I always say that to my clients. That that's where we start is. What we don't want isn't clarity, but it is a start. At least we're eliminating some things.

Urvina Shah: 16:02

But they can get caught up in that. So, because they're focusing on what they don't want, they only see other roles, jobs where they're getting more of what they don't want.

Christina Smith: 16:15

Yeah, or they have fears that you know. They could even like be self manifesting those things that they don't want because they're so focused on it and again, that's. You know, like I said, that other coach said it's just changing one pile of shit for another, if we're not really clear. I mean it's cool if you want to go experience it and try it out or whatever, but it doesn't mean that it's going to be better just because it's a change. It could be a different kind of not so great.

Anjali Gudhka: 16:47

We call that the musical chairs, so again. So what we're doing is changing your chair, but that's going to probably be the same, and you know it's a short burst of energy because it's a new environment or some things new, but at the end of the day you haven't solved the deeper problem.

Christina Smith: 17:09

Right, it's almost like a distraction, right.

Christina Smith: 17:11

I mean, that's really what it comes down to, and I know that there's people who have this fear of well, I went to school, I did all this stuff like so, Irvina, for you, for example, I went to this radiology school. I did all the things. I came really big in my career and I did really well. And then how can I leave that now? What will my parents think? What will my friends think Right? Or how can I leave the money Right, Because I've been working in this one industry for 25 years? If I change, I might have to lose some money in order to gain that experience. And so these are like more common blocks that I hear often, and I'm just curious how you manage those.

Urvina Shah: 18:03

I think one of the things really important to do is have those discussions with your families is the money, especially the financial element of it, and it's about being honest with that, because if you really sit down and look at everything, there are ways around it. I think we don't spend enough time looking at that element of it, especially as women. We don't Because we're reliant on I know I'm generalizing here, but certainly from my perspective, reliant on my husband or other people, my father, whoever it might have been, who managed the finances. I didn't really have a part in it. It's really important to do that piece and have this honest conversation.

Urvina Shah: 18:49

And it's about because you can't, whatever happens, even if you need the finances, to be in an unhappy career in the end just doesn't help, even with finances. It might even affect your promotions, your potential to get bonuses, etc. Etc. So in a funny way, it does spiral. So it's important to have those discussions to say, look, I am so unhappy, I really need to think about doing something different and making those small changes. And while you can do that, whilst you're working to explore all this, at least then you can find out, okay, what I can do if I've got this much money? How many days can I work doing something different? All of these things can come into play. It's really important to do that research, to have those discussions and to make a plan, I think also, it's important to talk about the investment side of it.

Anjali Gudhka: 19:53

So you've studied, you have worked and you've built yourself up to something. When you're looking at a transition, you're not taking away anything from what you have done so far. The beauty about transitioning at this stage is taking all that experience into the new world. It's not like you're going to leave everything behind and you're starting from zero. You're not. If you're starting from zero, then it's very painful because it feels like such a step back, and what we've found in most instances is it's just a slight pivot.

Anjali Gudhka: 20:33

So, you're still taking everything that you've learned. Nothing is wasted. All those skills, all that studying, all that sweat and blood and tears are coming with you into this new phase or new part of your journey. What it's doing is it's going to give you the because of that experience, you're not going to make the same mistakes. So you're going to get to your next stage a lot quicker than what you've done in maybe the first half of your career journey. So we don't discount anything, but we find ways of translating that into what your next stage should look like. And that's quite important for people to reconcile to, because again, it's that internal conversation where we're stopping ourselves because we feel that you know, we've spent that much time. How can I let that get wasted? Or I've got student loans to pay off because of that. These are all the narratives we say, but these are all the things that have got you onto the career ladder and now it's time to use all of that and just jump even higher to the next level.

Christina Smith: 21:45

I love that because it's like it's not seeing it as a downfall and it's like, if we really take it to the other side, it's like, because of those previous skills, you might have skills that other people in that new industry don't have, that you know could be useful. And I also agree that, like I was in corporate marketing before I became a coach, Well, a lot of those skills transfer, right, Like I can take a lot of that, even if it's just like working with people. I learned how to have conversations in a good way. Right, we learn how to communicate in a better way. So there's a whole bunch of skills that we don't often see on a resume that that would definitely still help us, even if we change careers, start our own business, whatever that part is for us.

Christina Smith: 22:33

But it all starts with clarity, which I think is something so important that you mentioned, and I really loved how you were like we can, Irvina. You were talking about how we can start exploring while we're doing what we're doing, which I think is so important, because I've seen other people like I just quit my job and I started a business and if you do it that way, you can do it. I'm not trying to discourage anybody but at the same time, it puts so much pressure on you to find the right answer right away, Rather than if I feel, if my brain knows that I'm just in exploration mode and not doing mode, I can dream a little bit bigger, I can explore new things, rather than just being like this is what I need to do and I need to make money now, because when we're in that anxious spot, I know I don't make any good decisions.

Urvina Shah: 23:29

I don't think anyone does yeah, because there's just too much folk.

Anjali Gudhka: 23:33

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and it's interesting how you've mentioned that sometimes people feel that they need to quit their job in order to have that time. But our advice is, if you're in that situation, then always make sure that from a financial perspective, you can stand that. So you know, have a buffer of your savings for about at least six months, six to nine months of savings, so that you know if it doesn't work out, for whatever reason, or if you are in between, you're trying to figure out what you want to do and then you're moving on to the next thing. It is going to take some time, it's not going to happen overnight, and so if you're in that position, then certainly make sure you take a calculated risk. Just don't jump straight into the deep end or the hot fire and then it just, you know, it just propagates into something you don't want.

Christina Smith: 24:36

Because then there's so much pressure.

Urvina Shah: 24:38

Yeah, there are people who are in a fortunate position at that in the midlife where they can do that, which is fantastic, and then you really have got the space and time to just do nothing else and focus on your next move. But, as Angie said, those who do have those financial, especially in this current climate, and may have financial implications, it's a good idea to take that time whilst you're working, because if you're unhappy, why not then do all this, because you're unhappy anyway at work.

Anjali Gudhka: 25:05

So find the just set it up. Set it up. Set it up so you can get into something different and you can hit the ground running when the time comes.

Christina Smith: 25:14

Yeah, and that's exactly how I did it, Like I cried for a year at my work you know on the way to work.

Christina Smith: 25:20

But then, like for two years, as I was exploring new things and as I started coaching, it took the pressure off that day job to be like the thing that fulfilled me and so I didn't cry anymore on the way to work, even though I was going to the same job I was last year. I wasn't crying because my brain was like focused on this other thing that I was growing. So it became less pressure of like I'm not going to do this for the rest of my life I can. It's almost like anytime I've ever quit a job and given them two weeks, that last two weeks was like the best two weeks of that job Right.

Christina Smith: 26:01

Because we didn't have the pressure of thinking I'm going to do this day in, day out. It's like, no, it's just two more weeks, no problem, I'm doing something else, right. But I had that space in my brain and my body that was like, oh, but here's the thing that you're really passionate about and that's what we're working towards, and just working towards that, even getting the clarity around that, yeah, it was like a big deal. That really changed my perspective on how I was showing up every day. So I love that.

Christina Smith: 26:30

Another option, I think, is like go get a menial job that pays less. If you just need a little bit of cash, go get something that you know easy peasy, working a retail, or something you know like something that you don't have to give a lot of energy to, especially if that big job that you had or career was really draining. You See, you know how much money do I actually need to make? Great? Well, let me go do something that doesn't take a lot of my mental or physical energy so that I can put that back into the business that I'm building and the clarity that I'm getting. So there's lots of options and I think that a lot of people come and like I either have to quit or I have to stay forever, and it's like there's a lot more options than that.

Anjali Gudhka: 27:16

Yeah, yeah, and sometimes having that outside conversation like you've been in that same environment for such a long time that you're almost systemized and so every day when you go in you see the same thing so it might affect your mood, it might kind of make you feel like this isn't the right place. But then when you have that conversation with someone else you can get a new perspective on it. It can kind of shift just where you are at, so it's not necessary that you know you have to find another place to work at. It could be that just having someone else show you the different sides of where you're working could mean that it'll just reignite that passion in you, that love that you had, or that excitement, so that it doesn't become a dreary commute to work. You're like looking forward to it because there's something new and exciting happening.

Christina Smith: 28:15

I love that because when I was on a sales team, it was like what really motivated me was knowing how what I was selling to people was impacting their lives. So, like I could I could even though I wasn't a huge fan of being in sales like I could see that what I was selling them was having an impact on their life, that it was changing and making their lives easier and it was a lot of software, but it was making them, making their jobs easier and helping them create like really cool things. And that, to me, was like getting reconnected to that purpose, right Of like why is it that I'm actually doing what I'm doing? It's not so I can talk to people and be like, yeah, you want to buy that, can I get your contract? Like none of that stuff. It was really about how I was impacting the world and I think sometimes we don't step back big enough to see it. We're so like inundated by the this is stress and this deadline and this to do task, and and we can forget that we actually have impact on the world.

Christina Smith: 29:19

No matter what we're doing, we have some type of impact and if I can see that I can, I can start to feel better about what I'm doing, yeah, yeah. So what else stops us? I know that we have this comfort zone. I really believe I want to revert back to that, because I know that you mentioned that in the beginning and this comfort zone. I always ask people is this unsafe or uncomfortable? And usually they're like I don't know, it feels unsafe. I'm like, yeah, it's usually just uncomfortable, right, I mean, fear is uncomfortable.

Urvina Shah: 29:57

Yes, that a lot of women who come to us sit in that zone and one of the things that we do with them is it's taking those little steps, the little goals, the little actions, because what that then does is that zone that they're in gets Wider and wider. So once they're still in the zone, but they're moving Towards that limit and therefore they are, after a while, start feeling, oh okay, I can do this or I can explore that, or all things do look different and start Not feeling so in that you know fear zone that they sit in and they're moving out of it slowly and of course, the more Steps they take they start seeing Actually there are possibilities out there.

Urvina Shah: 30:45

I can do this, or I am good at this, or things like that.

Anjali Gudhka: 30:49

So so this isn't as scary as I thought it was. Yeah, because partly it's just we've made up all of this to stop us from taking that step, so a Lot of it starts shifting as soon as they take the little steps, because it's just building your confidence in yourself.

Urvina Shah: 31:09

And one of the things to do for is really quite important to know is that, because every little step you take, you might sit in another Little piece of a comfort zone, but in fact that's a good place to be, because that's where you're growing, that's what you're developing, so that, rather than you know it, sometimes it's it's better to view as it is this zone of comfort, that where you are slightly uncomfortable but you are growing.

Christina Smith: 31:34

Yeah, I always tell my clients that Discomfort means growth, like that's. That's what it usually means if we're actually listening to it, and that's okay. It's okay to be uncomfortable. In fact, a lot of humane is really uncomfortable. And that's okay. I, we don't do we want to live there. We probably don't want to live there 24-7, right, we want to go, do the scary thing and and stretch that what you're saying it's like.

Christina Smith: 32:01

Stretch that comfort zone just a little bit and then, come back and then stretch it a little bit more and then come back. But you know, if we weren't uncomfortable, we would have already been there, right?

Christina Smith: 32:14

That's what people don't understand, like if we didn't need to grow, it wouldn't be uncomfortable, we would just from there. But, like I always think of, like when we stop growing, we start dying. And that's when we start like settling in and going this is fine, it's fine, I'll just survive, I'll just get through it, and it's like I don't want a life of just getting through it. I'd rather see myself like I'm being brave, right I? And I think that you know, because the fear comes, we're gonna be a failure. We're gonna have to start over. I'm gonna have to learn more. All of those I might be embarrassed Like, all of those are just uncomfortable, they're not unsafe. It's okay to stretch into that and I know that a lot of people will bring in like imposter syndrome, which I have.

Christina Smith: 33:00

Episode 3 is about imposter syndrome but we're not. Like. I hate the phrase fake it. See, you make it. I don't know, it's just a phrase that I'm not a big fan of because it's it's just cringey to me. But act as if. Right, I'm gonna act as if I already believe that I'm a full-time coach. I'm gonna act as if I really see myself Becoming that next person. How would that person act? You know if I want to be, if I want to be Susie, then how does Susie show up every day, right, like if I want the job that she has? What are the actions that I I would take for myself to get?

Urvina Shah: 33:38

into.

Christina Smith: 33:39

Susie's position and just moving forward and acknowledging the fear. Sometimes when we just acknowledge it and go, wow, I'm feeling very fearful, that's okay, and then I can celebrate myself at the end of the day and be like, yes, that was so brave of you. Good job, christina, you did that thing. That was new and it was scary. And it sounds silly like, but I Literally pat myself on the back. My clients laugh at me all the time but it's like we don't celebrate enough. We focus so much on these pieces that we're not getting right that we don't really Acknowledge all the pieces that we're getting right. You know, like that I'm actually. I'm doing the thing. Yeah, I might be scared and yeah, I may not get it right, but that's confidence. Confidence is the skill of doing something, knowing it might not turn out the way that I wanted.

Urvina Shah: 34:28

I'm just gonna have to deal with that, yeah and it is something we work on quite a lot over the clients confidence piece and there's so much involved in the confidence which you can do every day or every week, whatever, but there is so many things that shows you your confidence and I think I guess you know what happens is when they're so stuck, they cannot see any of that. So it's it's really the clarity piece is the is the big piece here in terms of actually you know what, even though you're stuck, there are XYZ ABC options.

Christina Smith: 35:04

What are three questions or Tools that you might offer your clients to start getting their clarity if they're just like I, just know I don't want what I have right, because that's where we all start with, not this. How do we start moving towards that clarity?

Anjali Gudhka: 35:23

I mean one of. I mean yeah, I mean we use. We use a lot of questions, as as as we do in coaching. I think the one, the one that I've found quite impactful, is if you were, say, take a time frame five years or six years from now, and if you were to look back what do you want to see, what do you want to have achieved in that time frame and where you're at now, are you in a position to achieve that in that time frame, five years or 10 years from now? Because if you're still where you are now in 10 years time, if it's good enough for you, great. But if it's something that you're thinking no, no, no, I don't want to be here, then you can start figuring out what your next steps are. So that's one of the things that starts giving you that shift of in 10 years time. Where do I want to? If I look back, what other things I should have been doing or have achieved?

Christina Smith: 36:25

What would I be proud of myself?

Urvina Shah: 36:27

Yeah, beautiful. And the other thing we look at is we talked a little bit about it earlier about the skill set and their competencies and what they have already and what they can do with that. What else can they look for that will give them the meaning with those skills that they already have? Of course, sometimes there's new skills to be learned too, but so we really hone in on those things as well, because I think when they are stuck, they often feel that the one that their skills that they have are just they're not good enough, and what are they gonna do now with those skills? They're old or whatever, however, they think. And two is that they can't learn new skills. So we really focus on that element of it as well, through looking at the opportunities and all kinds of things that they can use their skills at. So that was two pieces we do, and then we do work on the confidence element of it as well, and the simplest one that you can start off with is just making a list of all your achievements, even the smallest one.

Christina Smith: 37:40

I like that a lot. I start my clients by looking at what are your gifts and skills and like these strengths, like you were talking skills. But what do you do? Naturally, and sometimes when we're in that really limited space, we may not be able to think anything nice about ourselves, because when I'm feeling anxiety, every negative thought in the world comes up. It's not positive at all. But one of the things that we can do is ask our friends, like what are five things?

Christina Smith: 38:10

about me that you really love or you think that I'm really good at, so that we can just start exploring, like, what really are my gifts and my strengths, cause they're different for everyone.

Christina Smith: 38:20

And if we can start getting that connected to that identity of like, where is this identity of who I wanna be and all of these beautiful magic that I already have that I'm not seeing, then we can start feeling a little bit more confident too. So I really love these questions. What, in 10 years, will I wanna look back and be proud of, or happy that I did or accomplished? What are these skills that I have, cause most skills, I think, are transferable in some way. And then, what is this magic and my gifts and my strengths that I just naturally have, the ones that I like to participate in, cause we've made this list before and, like, math is one of those things that I'm just naturally good at. I don't wanna be an accountant, I don't wanna work with numbers, I don't wanna have anything to do with that. So just because we're good at it doesn't mean that we have to do it.

Anjali Gudhka: 39:20

Absolutely, absolutely. But it also gives you an insight into like you've been able to say that you're good at math, for example, and if you were looking to use that some way, it would give you a list of options where math would be quite useful to have as a skill set. And so it starts opening up kind of your world to start explore.

Christina Smith: 39:47

And that's the idea behind it.

Anjali Gudhka: 39:49

Yeah, and that's the idea behind this is to move you from your limited world into an unlimited world, beautiful.

Christina Smith: 40:00

So you have a free gift for us today. Tell us a little bit about that and the link will be below so that they can clickity click on it.

Anjali Gudhka: 40:11

Yeah, so we run a free virtual career clarity masterclass which is about 60 minutes and it's live with us, so it's not prerecorded and there's interaction within it.

Anjali Gudhka: 40:24

And in that masterclass this is exactly what we're.

Anjali Gudhka: 40:28

What we've discussed today, christina, is there are some elements of that within the masterclass itself in terms of how to get out of being stuck in your career and to start shifting it towards more progression, and we go through a couple of steps in a lot more detail in the masterclass to just give you a different perspective, to kind of shift how you're looking at things and almost start to give you a sense of that clarity.

Anjali Gudhka: 41:01

Also, because it's 60 minutes, it gives you a bit of that thinking space that you haven't given yourself in your day to day. So when you come onto the masterclass, it's taking, it's giving you an undistracted time to just think about your own life and your time to just think about your career a little bit, and that goes a long way when you're starting to explore different things you want to do, because in our normal day to day we'll just I'll do it tomorrow, I'm too tired today, I've had such a long day or it's been such a busy week, and we give ourselves these excuses and before you know it, five years have passed and nothing's happened. So this masterclass is a great way to just sit down on your computer, get some information, get some like, start getting that clarity and then see just how much things shift for you very quickly.

Christina Smith: 41:58

I love that because it's just sometimes it's just opening up the possibilities, being able to see more possibilities, because there's so many people that are like they think it's like black or white, like I need to stay or I need to leave right now, or I need to stay or I need to start a whole new business, and it's like there could be so many other possibilities that we just haven't because we don't spend our brain, our brain time there, we don't actually see how much is actually available. We just get kind of get stuck into what we already know. So beautiful. So if you guys want to sign up for that class, make sure that you go down to that link and do the clickity click and you'll get all signed up so that you can start seeing more possibilities.

Christina Smith: 42:44

Thank you so much, youtube, for coming on and sharing this stuff with us. I think it's a. It can feel like a very scary space to be curious about other possibilities and it can feel like you are jumping off a ledge. So if y'all are having if the audience is having any questions about this, please reach out to these two beautiful women so that they can help you get a little bit more clear. And that master class sounds delicious. I might even just take it just to feel like am I in the right spot Because we can always be getting better, or like just fine tuning and tweaking right.

Anjali Gudhka: 43:25

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It's been fantastic, christina, always, always a pleasure to talk about how to get people out of their comfort zone and into better things.

Christina Smith: 43:37

Yes, I think so too. Thank you so much, and thank you, audience, for tuning in. We'll see you again soon.