What to think about if you are forced into thinking about a career change

I wrote a piece in February about the options available to people when they left Government, leaning on my experience of when I was in10 Downing Street and the advice I gave to people. I had lots of former SpAds, and even some Cabinet Ministers get in touch to say how helpful they found the piece. More surprisingly, there were others from different walks of life who said they were considering a career change and found it useful.

Therefore I thought with a lot of people being furloughed and potentially being forced into changing careers, I would update the piece and give it a bit of a wider lens. The original post is available here.

I left Downing Street over six months ago and I still haven’t fully worked out what I want to do next. There is no quick and easy fix to this, but a few of the things below are what I have found helpful.

Just to be clear, this is not advice, it is more just general counsel which might help you think things through a bit, it is based on numerous conversations I have had over the years with people who find themselves out of work.

Take a break and don’t feel guilty

The last few weeks have been exhausting for everyone, it has been incredibly tough living in uncertain times. Hopefully you have been given some redundancy, spend it on something you enjoy or something that will make you happy, you’ve had a crap time and you deserve it.

Don’t feel the need to start job searching straightaway, everything is in flux anyway. There is no need to jump straight from one stressful situation right into another, take some time to do some other things.

When you are ready to think about what’s next:

Growth Mindset

If you talk to anyone under 25, they all learn the Growth Mindset as youngsters now. They may not have been alive for Gazza’s wondergoal at Euro 96, but they sure know their Growth Mindset theory.

In essence, the theory is everything in life is an experience that gives you the chance to develop as a person, whether that be skills or general learnings.

You may read that and think are you mad?! I may have just potentially lost my job, along with with all the associated stresses and worries that brings..

That may be true, but which of you has not day dreamed in the last couple of months about doing something completely different.

I have just finished the excellent book called ‘designing your life’ by the two Stanford professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.

They recommend writing down three versions of your life over the next five years. It helps you visualise the future.

Pick three different scenarios, A) perhaps the most obvious and B) if you were stretching yourself …

And C) the third one really far out there, something along the lines of literally what you day dream of doing, being a professional chef or a super fit personal instructor — you don’t have to share it with anyone, although it helps if you do.

Write down on a blank piece of paper, a timeline for how you would go about it. Don’t overthink it, just let your imagination run for a bit …

Make sure you include personal goals, run a half marathon, go to Marrakech

Make a mental note of when you are feeling at your most energised.

When you do this, there is a natural clarity that comes to mind, and you will probably be able to order the three quite clearly.

Then you should rank them in order:

• what resources you have to make it succeed;
• how much you like the idea;
• how confident you are of success
• and how coherent it is with your overall life plan. Studying on the Great Barrier Reef for a year might not work too well if you have a young family.

You may find it surprising what you find most important. I would highly recommend the book if you want to explore similar tasks more. There is lots more on their website here.

Utilise your network / connect with old acquaintances

Do not be afraid to reach out to your network, friends as well as colleagues and particularly former colleagues.

A month ago, it might have felt odd to reach out to Ben who you last worked with ten years ago, but with everything going on, it gives us the perfect excuse to restart conversations.

Explain what has happened, he might be going through the same or have some insights … as British people, we are all proud people, but it is absolutely fine to open up a bit.

You may be surprised at the serendipity of conversations that take place.

I recently reached out to someone who I had worked at the IoD for a catch up and now I am helping him brainstorm a new business venture he is working on.

For what it is worth … there is going to be a bit of reluctance amongst business leaders about hiring full time staff, when we may get another wave or possibly even up to 10 waves of this.

So I think a lot of people may have to set themselves up self employed or in mini consultancies over the next few months.

That being said, I think the best bosses who are confident of long term growth are going to be scooping up the best talent that is available at the moment.

Take up an old or new hobby

What haven’t you done in a while that cheers you up, maybe it is a board game, or maybe it is a video game, Football Manager playing is through the roof … they can never take our football from us — even though it might feel like that if you’re a Liverpool fan and the Premier League decide to void the season.

Maybe it is writing, we all have a novel in us … but maybe start with shorter pieces first or something you really know something about that might help someone else, or simply something you know nothing about but would have fun researching. I know more about the market and production of podcasts than I did a month ago due to the aforementioned business idea.

You might be running a bit more, if so couch to 5K is a great app to use, if you are a bit more advanced 21k runner is also good to stretch you more.

Learn a new skill or learn lots of skills

Lots of top universities are offering free courses that you can take part in, even Harvard has put a load of courses online — available here. EdX has a library where you can search lots from across the world that is available here.

I learnt some basic tips of flower arranging courtesy of Bloom & Wild … i didn’t even realise there really was a way to arrange flowers to be honest … if my 18 year old self could see me now, he would be having stern words with me.

But it only took 15 mins and now I know for the rest of my life how to arrange flowers better for my wife when I buy them … something which my 18 year old would not quite appreciate the value of.

Volunteer

You can be one of the million people to sign up to help the NHS, which you can do here, but they are struggling to fill all those places, so why not have a look at this fabulous website which can match your skills with a charity, courtesy of Oli Barrett MBE, it is available here.

Media

Don’t watch or listen to too much mainstream media (sorry to sound like a Corbynite), it is too depressing for words. However, do think about signing up for a single newspaper and sticking to that as your one source of news. Good journalism costs money to produce and is exceptional value.

For what it’s worth this crisis is actually quite a slow moving news story, therefore the media are desperately trying to find new angles and that often means going after the Government. The media are doing their job and this scrutiny is important, but if you listen to it all day, every day, you are going to drive yourself mad.

But possibly try and find some new podcasts, they are on everywhere now, have a search for your favourite businesses and or business leaders, chances are they will have done a podcast and you listening to them may give you some inspiration. Reid Hoffman (founder of LinkedIN) is available here and FT podcasts are here.

Read a business book

Reading is on the up, I find reading about business oddly relaxing and I find it quite a good way to be learning about a new industry at the same time. It doesn’t hurt to try it, and if you don’t like it, well you can just put it on your book shelf behind you for your next Zoom call, or is it only politicians who do that!?

Personal recommendations on this would be:

Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis,

The Bank that lived a Little, the history of barclays by Philip Augar,

Damaged Goods, the Story of Philip Green and Debenhams by Oliver Shah

Shoe Dog, the story of Nike by Philip Knight

Spot goes to the Beach by Eric Hill (though that’s more for the 8 month old than me)

Bad Blood, the Secrets and Lies in Silicon Valley by John Carreyrou

The FT also has their annual book list, you can see the last twenty years winners here and all the shortlists too.

Make a physical list of the things you are going to do when we get through this

Because we will get through it and it’s fun to think of what we are going to do after. But the beauty in this is not just to do it in your head but commit to paper and stick it on the fridge.

I’ll share mine with you:

Play football, watch football, have a BBQ, go to the pub with friends, go to see a West End Play and then go for dinner with my wife …

That is going to be the first day anyway.

One final thing …

I wrote this at the end of my post in February:

The message I want to get across is that there are lots of opportunities out there, but it will take awhile for you to work out what you want and for you to find it. You will at times in the next few months, feel a bit despondent and at points a bit desperate and clueless about everything, that is normal and it is OK.

When I left №10 a few months ago, it was the hardest professional decision I have ever taken, but I left to start a family and have ended up studying at Stanford University and moving to San Francisco for three months, so it works out in different ways than you might expect.

Now if you told me when I wrote that that I would have to update it in two months and you will be sat at home back in the UK looking after your eight month old daughter as your wife has had to return to work in the NHS as a Doctor … well I am not sure what I would have thought.

So once again life works out in different ways than you might expect, but just embrace the change and make the most of it … I have never known more nursery rhymes in my life and one man went to mow a meadow is the best new one and Grand Old Duke of York is the best classic.

We will beat this virus, and there will be a new normal, we will get back to the pub at some stage and see each other again. Let’s just make sure we are all the better off for it.

Please do share this with people in your networks, I hope it can reach some unexpected people and give them a lift.

I am writing a newsletter on help for business leaders which you can sign up to here and am on Twitter here.