Sometimes you need to think about starting fresh – as a person and a company. It’s not age-based either. If you aren’t happy at 50 or 60 there’s a lot you can do to rectify the situation. Curently I’m sitting here waiting to leave for a meeting with two women who are highly successful entrepreneurs with a company I am thinking about joining. I’m nervous. My stomach has butterflies. I’m a schoolteacher and I am no entrepreneur. But 
what the heck? The opportunity is there to meet and greet and that won’t do any harm.
Is change difficult? You know it is. It’s scary. It’s fun and most importantly it’s risky business. In fact I got up today telling myself I was going to cancel my meeting and just take it easy today (it’s Sunday). Then I thought “meh – what have I got to lose?” Nothing. What have I got to gain? A lot. Information – about the organization and about me. A new network. New friends. What the heck?
If you’re thinking about moving from here to there (wherever that is) it’s always wise – or maybe imperative – to have a plan. You need a business plan and a strategy on how to get there. You’ll be lost without it. That’s one thing that most of the entrepreneurs I’ve ever researched on the internet have advised so I figure they must know what they’re talking about.
You need to assess yourself in terms of your skills. You can’t do anything you want in this world. That’s a lie. If you could you’d probably be earning one million dollars a year as a rocket scientist for NASA (wouldn’t it be hilarious if one of them was reading this?). That’s not going to happen to you. Why? You don’t have the skills or the academic ability or you’d be doing it. You need to be brutally honest about what you can and can’t do.
You do need confidence however and when you figure out your interests and whether or not you can realistically achieve your business goals and make a decent living – that’s a tall order – then you’re on your way to making a business plan. Don’t just think about where you’ll end up and how great it will be to have CEO on your own door. You need to think about the steps you have to take to get there and whether or not you want to see them through. That’s the hard part. Writing the plan is quite easy too. Here’s an article about how to write a plan to help you with your career change.
Some business people think that using social media is a waste of time. That’s a courageous thing to say in the face of all of our communication technology. It’s also interesting. Read about it here. Here’s an article with a cheat sheet about reinventing yourself. Here’s a site to help you build your own cheat sheet. Here’s an interesting article about reinventing yourself by 6 p.m. today. Personally I started today at noon.
When all’s said and done however it’s much better to be giving thought to a career and a future (and a present) that you’d enjoy than to be stuck in a job you hate. No doubt you probably relish the thought of a better title and better status. You want people to say “wow that’s impressive!” We all do. We want to bask in the glow of human admiration. That’s normal. It also doesn’t matter one bit. When you end up with a lifestyle you like and a job you love that’s what matters. Consider Jim Henson’s response when people asked him what he did for a living: ” I make puppets.” He wasn’t hung up on his title even though he eventually became the founder of Sesame Street.
And that’s the whole point of reinventing yourself.
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