Finding creativity in our work is closely connected to the concept of ‘flow’.

Don’t be put off by the clichés about creativity. How many times have you been in a brainstorm meeting and been told to “Think outside the box”, or “Push the envelop”?

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s famous investigations of “optimal experience” have revealed that what makes an experience genuinely satisfying is a state of consciousness called flow.

Flow is the state of existence when a person performing an activity is totally immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.

We hope to find this in all aspects of our lives, especially in our work. “Flow happens when a person’s skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just about manageable, so it acts as a magnet for learning new skills and increasing challenges. If challenges are too low, one gets back to flow by increasing them. If challenges are too great, one can return to the flow state by learning new skills.”

  Quote from a review of Finding Flow in Psychology Today, last reviewed June 14, 2012, www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199707/ finding-flow


Finding flow at work can be enhanced

“First, establish priorities among the demands that crowd into consciousness. Successful people often make lists or flowcharts of all the things they have to do, and quickly decide which tasks they can delegate or forget, and which ones they have to tackle personally, and in what order. The next step is to match one’s skills with whatever challenges have been identified. There will be tasks we feel incompetent to deal with. Can you learn the skills required in time? Can you get help? Can the task be transformed or broken into simpler parts? Usually the answer to one of these questions will provide a solution that transforms a potentially stressful situation into a flow experience.”

Quote from a review of Finding Flow in Psychology Today, last reviewed June 14, 2012, www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199707/ finding-flow

How does it feel to be in flow?

Author Csikszentmihalyi says we know we are in the ‘flow when:

·      We are completely involved in what we are doing — focused and concentrated

·      We have a sense of ecstasy and of being outside everyday reality

·      We experience great inner clarity and we know what needs to be done and how well we are doing

·      We know that the activity is doable and that our skills are adequate to the task

·      We have a sense of serenity with no worries about ourselves and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego

·      We experience timelessness and are thoroughly focused on the present, the hours seem to pass by in minutes

·      Intrinsic motivation means that whatever produces flow becomes its own reward.

Find Out More About Flow

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has delivered some great TED talks

To review ‘Flow, the secret to happiness’  go to www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow

One of the most important aspects as your move through the career transition process is to ensure that you can present a new identity that is authentic and you are comfortable with to your future employers and or clients that you will seek out.

A new identity may or may not mean a reinvention with a totally new set of beliefs and behaviors. The extent of your career transition will really depend on how much you want to change your identity.

So how do you go about  managing how others will interpret your career change and how you can plan a process to ensure your career transition is understood by potential employers and clients?

Rebranding is important when you are undertaking a career change and you want potential employers to see you as you are now. This career change is happening for many reasons that you have already considered- time for a completely new career, you’ve been laid off or you want to move up the corporate or public service ladder. In all cases you need to take control of your brand, reputation and how people will see you.

Personal branding or self-branding enables you to promote your strengths and skills in a crowded market.

Branding is not just for corporations or products and made up of a logo and a tag line.  It’s also more than about creating a personal image and articulating your Unique Value Proposition.

It’s important to review this during the career redesign process as it provides a means for us to clarify and communicate what makes us different, unique and valuable to potential employers or clients.

In undertaking the self-reflective activities in the Sweet Spot Careers workshop programs or resources, we are aiming to discover (or rediscover) what that special combination of skills, strengths, talents and interests are that fulfill your purpose and reflect your values.

So in defining your brand, reflect back on these and how they can be communicated in a new role you are seeking out.

It’s useful to pull together these comments into a statement that can reflect your career or life purpose. This will become your Personal Brand Statement.

While this might sound challenging it will to assist you to express yourself through your communications including CV’s, online and other interactions. It will also be useful for the various profiles you will set up like a LinkedIn profile, cover letter and websites.

For more go to http://www.careerredesign.com.au/modules.html

Guest blog in Career FAQs

www.careerfaqs.com.au/news/news-and-views/find-your-career-sweet-spot

Guest post in I AM WOMAN

www.iamwomanmagazine.com.au/2014/05/22/changing-careers-means-changing-ourselves/

We can’t talk about fear without also discussing your approach to risk. Risk taking means taking action without certainty of the outcome. So how can we become better prepared to embrace uncertainty and risk associated with a career change?

What is fear?
It’s a chemical reaction in the brain that’s located in the hypothalamus that activates the ‘fight or fright’ response.

It’s like a chain reaction, and sometimes we are not even conscious of our response until it’s over. It can start with a stressful situation or stimulus that ends with the release of chemicals. This can feel like your heart is racing, you breath quicker and you’re ready to fight… or run for safety.

We can assume that our response to fear has some evolutionary benefit.

If you talk to therapists they would often say that the best way to overcome the fear is to face it.

Overcoming the fear of a career change is a key step in the career redesign program and is often described by participants as a pervasive emotion that has held them back in so many ways.

The fear of failure is also dictated by the degree of the consequences of the failure. Most of our fears can be quite reasonable fears to have, the question to consider is about whether these fears are preventing you from taking the next steps just because they could rather than will happen. The key is to evaluate the likelihood of these fears being realised.

Fear is a paradox because it can act as a motivator and stretch you as well as act as a barrier limiting you from progressing.  

Betty Lui in her book “Work Smarts: What CEOs Say You Need to Know to Get Ahead” describes bad fear, less bad fear and good fear.[1]

Bad fear is the type that just holds you back or makes you take risks that are well beyond the reward. It forces you into a bad and regretful decision… like taking a job that we know deep down will not fulfill us.

Good fear is the kind of fear that is motivating. “It’s the fear that we won’t be able to live with ourselves if we don’t move ahead…. Good fears are part of any successful comeback story, that after failure you dig inside yourself to come back better than you were before because of the fear that if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. Good fear… is part of any success story”.[2]

And then there’s the less bad fear… I describe this as the stuff that puts us into autopilot by not taking any risks because we are just cruising along. It’s neither good nor bad, not destructive nor constructive.

The key, according to Betty Liu, is to turn the ‘less bad into more good’. It’s about making decisions that may have some down sides, but you can live with them.

In the end, what’s the difference between good fear, less bad fear, and bad fear? Not much other than what you do with it. If you wallow in the bad fear, it will destroy your self confidence and worth”.[3]

The Career Redesign Program tackles the risk, uncertainty and fears associated with a career transition.
The six most common fears identified in a career change are:

·      Fear of financial failure

·      Fear of not being competent

·      Fear of what others will think

·      Fear that I cant fit in with this new identity

·      Fear that my family won’t agree with my change

·      Fear of the unknown

The Career Redesign Program helps participants to respond to these commonly expressed fears, identify common threads, assess them and strategize on how to overcome them.

What keeps you up at night? Is it fear of what could happen with your career change?


[1] Betty Lui “Work Smarts: What CEOs Say You Need to Know to Get Ahead”, 2014, Page 86
[2] Lui, Page 89
[3] Lui, Page 93

The Career Redesign Program is based on a 7-step methodology that can help you make a career transition. Once you get a sense of why you are seeking change and getting to know yourself, the next step is to understand what is stopping you from progressing to explore and make real your career change desires.

Inevitably you will be confronted with the fears that can sometimes come with change. Change without risk is impossible!
Risk taking means taking action without certainty of the outcome and it can be uncomfortable and dangerous because it involves action.

In Chapter 6 of “Sweet Spot Careers: A Practical and Creative Guide to a Successful Midlife Career Transition”, I asked readers to think about what would be the cost of their career change.

As you will read on, the cost I refer to is not in just monetary terms, but in what long held beliefs you may need to change, or at least reconsider, to be able to progress through your career transition.

To discover more about your relationship to money and how any inherent fears associated with planning for a career change will involve also focussing on your finances, go to the new support modules are available online at www.careerredesign.com.au/modules

In finding our career sweet spot..... that place where we can add value, love what we do and be rewarded… we must also find meaning.

Recent studies have focused on what makes us feel good at work. A recent TED talk by Dan Ariely concluded, “We really have this incredibly simplistic view of why people work and what the labor market looks like.”

His research found:

• We must see the fruits of our labor and knowing our work has made a difference will make us more productive.
• It seem obvious but the less appreciated the less motivated we are at work. This study also found that if we don’t feel appreciated we want more money to do the work.
• When we are faced with interesting problems to solve and the harder these problems are, we feel prouder and will continue to put more effort into a our work. My reading of this one is to not shy away form the difficult problems…embrace them.
• Giving value to others, knowing that our work will helps others will increase our motivation.

For more go to
http://blog.ted.com/2013/04/10/what-motivates-us-at-work-7-fascinating-studies-that-give-insights/