|
Tip of the Week | Blog | Upcoming Events | What's New | About | Subscription
Welcome to the Green Career Tip of the Week
|
Online Version of this Issue Green Career Tips Archive
See what exciting and helpful events we have coming up for you. Check out the Highlighted Events sections and sign up now.
Are you struggling with how to balance your current job, your personal life, and your quest for a green career? In this week's tip, Carol shares several strategies she developed that allow you to accomplish your goals bit by bit.
Did you get a f.r.e.e month on the Green Career Central site this week? Scroll down to see if the beginning of your email is next to the treasure chest. We do this every week!
Connect with us on these social networking sites:
Linked-In Facebook Twitter iTunes
   
Highlighted Event: Upcoming Events for Fall 2009
If one of the events below interests you, click through to the Web site for details.
 On-the-Spot Mentoring with Carol
Wednesday, Oct 28th at 6 pm Pacific
Registration deadline is Friday, October 23rd
$19/member and $29/non members
Are you trying to figure out your next move in finding your green career? In this teleclass, Carol will work with a series of participants to help them identify actions they can take to get unstuck. The goal of all of these "on the spot" mentoring conversations will be to move everyone on the call closer to their green career goals! This is not your ordinary “teleclass”! If you like interactive - you will love this!
Click here for more information.
"Jump Start Your Green Career" 6-Week Intensive Workshop
Six week workshop by phone – begins Tuesday, Nov 3rd
See full description with benefits, results, and investment on Web site
Are you ready to move your search your green career forward? In this 6-week intensive teleclass workshop, facilitated by Carol McClelland and her team of career coaches, you’ll bring your green niche into focus and create a personalized action plan to help you get the results you desire. Achieving both of these outcomes helps you shorten your path to your green career.
If you wonder if this workshop is a good fit for you, please set up an appointment with Carol to talk about where you are in your process and what you can expect from the workshop. Click to the full description for details about the workshop and how to set up a conversation with Carol.
Click here for more information.
Five Ways to Tap into Your Green Network: Locally and Online
Wednesday, Nov 18th at 6 pm Pacific
$19/member and $29/non members
Do you want to take your green network to the next level? When the job market is as tight as it is right now, your network is likely to be the most productive way to find job openings in your area. It’s never too early to build or strengthen your green network! Join us for this teleclass, where Carol will help you dig into the details of building your own network. This is not an introductory call but rather an in-depth call for those ready for more! Because there will be fewer people on this call, we will be opening the phone lines so Carol may answer your questions live and you may all share ideas.
Click here for more information.
Tip of the Week: What One Thing Can You Do Today to Move Toward Your Green Career?
Any time you commit to making a career change you are faced with a seemingly endless list of tasks to handle. There are so many additional tasks to include in your daily life, you may feel a bit overwhelmed with how to get it all done.
A number of years ago, I made the decision to leave my corporate job and build my own business. At the time I had a full time job that had a way of extending into my personal time on a regular basis. I traveled for work at least once a month, if not more. And, on top of all that, I was recovering from a health challenge that had me very fatigued. Needless to say, it was a lot to handle.
With a vision of what I wanted, I became highly motivated to create my new work and life. Sixteen months after I created my goal, I walked out of my corporate job with everything I needed to start my business in place.
The first few months after I made the decision, I struggled with how to balance my current job and my quest to create my business. Finally, after some trial and error and frustration, I develop several strategies that allowed me to accomplish my goals bit by bit.
Strategies You Can Use to Manage Your Transition into a Green Career
Take a look at how you can implement these strategies in your own life.
- Build an overall plan of what you need to accomplish to reach your green career goal. By clarifying the steps you need to take you can focus on one or two steps at a time rather than thinking you need to get everything done at once. Take a look at the left navigation bar of the Green Career Central site for an outline of the steps people generally take to change careers.
There are several benefits to having a step by step plan spelled out:
- You know what to do now and what you need to do next.
- You keep a focus that allows you to track your progress.
- You can better manage your time.
As soon as you lay out your steps, your next task is to estimate how much time you are going to need to accomplish each step, given what’s going on in your work and personal life. I found it was helpful to assign a step to a particular month. For example, you might say that for the month of November you are going to focus on Step 3, identifying your green niche. Then in December you can focus on Step 4, exploring and researching each of your target industries. If your schedule and responsibilities allow it, you may be able to assign a step to a one or two week time period rather than a month.
Extra Benefit: When an opportunity comes up - a networking meeting, a potential course you could take, or people you could talk to - you can discern whether that task helps you accomplish your planned goal or is a time-consuming distraction. By making this decision consciously you are staying true to your ultimate goal, rather than being lured from one potentially exciting opportunity to the next without any rhyme or reason to your actions.
- Create or watch for free time that’s truly yours to design. Finding time in a busy schedule is a challenge. The busier you are with responsibilities for children, care taking, or your job, the harder it is. Look at your typical week (I know, even that can be a challenge… what’s typical?), but bear with me. Think of your week days – early morning, morning, midday, lunch, afternoon, early evening, late evening – and your weekends. Where in your schedule could you carve out some time for YOU? Is it before the kids wake up in the morning or after you put them to bed at night? Is it during your lunch hour at work? Or a block of time on the weekends?
Think of each potential block as a time oasis - a quiet time in the midst of your busy schedule where you can decide for yourself how you want to use your time. To actually make this happen, you may need to come up with a new way to set boundaries at work (actually taking a lunch hour out of the office) or with your family (having your kids understand that you have homework too.) Although you may not be able to live by this schedule 100 percent of the time, seeing windows of time will help you find ways to utilize them to your best advantage.
- Each morning when you wake up, ask yourself, “What one thing can I do today to take me closer to my goal?” Although this question seems obvious and simplistic, creating a focus/intention/goal for your day will enable you to get results when it comes to reaching your green career goal.
Rather than wasting precious time trying to figure out what you should do next each time you have an open block of time, use your plan to show you exactly what to focus on.
- If you don’t know your green niche, your first step is to identify your green focus. Pinpointing the areas of the green economy that interest you most is THE most effective ways to use your time wisely and get results. To identify your green niche, you can focus on the following tasks.
- Start a list of green topics you know you are passionate about.
- Surf the web or scan a green magazine to identify topics that intrigue you and add those to your list.
- Think back to earlier times in your life to identify green themes in your reading choices, volunteer activities, or classes you took.
- If you are a Green Career Central member, download the What’s Your Green Niche ebook.
- Focus on the next exercise in the What’s Your Green Niche ebook.
- If you’ve narrowed down your green niche to 2-3 possible target industries, turn your attention toward the following tasks.
- Identify a professional association that matches your interests.
- Find a local networking meeting to attend to learn more about your target industry.
- Search LinkedIn for contacts who share your interests.
- Locate a short course you could take to confirm your interests.
- Research to find out what training is required to enter each of your target industries.
These bullets are just examples of the kinds of tasks you can accomplish in a day or a couple of days. The clearer you are in creating these doable tasks for yourself, the more efficient you’ll be in making progress.
If you have a collection of possible tasks listed, you can scan the list to find a task that is appropriate for the time you have available and where you are when you have the time. For example, if you are stuck in a doctor’s office waiting for an appointment, you might be able to do some brainstorming but you might not be able to do an Internet search. If you’ve had a long week, you might not be interested in a heavy duty research project, but you could do some quick searches online. Match your tasks to your energy, the time you have available, and the resources that are available to you at the moment.
With your step by step plan laid out and tied to your calendar, you can quickly identify individual tasks that will help you make progress toward the current step you are working on.
The plan may feel too structured at first, but you’ll soon see you are able to make far more progress when you know where you are going and what tasks it takes to get there.
Copyright © 2009 Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc.
Update: Want Some Ideas for Your Green Reading List?
Visit our bookstore for books we recommend you read if you want to green your career.
We’ve categorized some of our favorite books to help you find just the one you need to move forward with your green career.
The bookstore includes books about:
- General green topics
- Green economy
- Green business
- Green jobs and careers
- Starting your own business
- Industry specific resources
- Regional resources
Green Career Central Blog:
Green Career Trends: Trends we spotted this week include a grid super hub, a new way to combine lithium-ion battery, and roof shingles that changes color depending on the amount of sun they receive.
Bioneers Speakers Streaming Live Today, Saturday, Sunday:
Although it’s too late to see this cutting edge conference live, you can watch recorded presentations from the conference. I wasn’t able to attend this year, but I did last year. A very inspiring conference to be sure.
Follow the Green Money: Money is flowing! Check out the path money is taking to bring more funds to wind, green manufacturing, clean tech, and the smart grid.
Membership Has Its Advantages!
The discussion forum topic, audios, ebook, and articles listed below are available to members of GreenCareerCentral.com as a part of their membership. If you're not a member and would like to have immediate access, we'd love to have you join us now!
Green Career Central is a membership site with a comprehensive set of easy-to-use programs, resources, and events to help people achieve their green career dreams whether they want to find a green job, start a green business, or get a green education.
  
"It's a hard to find an investment these days that pays for itself many times over but the annual fee for joining Green Career Central is certainly worth every penny. The process laid out is structured and easy to follow. It takes you through the steps to get a truer understanding what your interests and skills are and makes you excited about researching your career options, while giving you a sense of progress and accomplishment. The weekly tips and "how to" resources on the website are time saving and are in of themselves an invaluable resource. Thanks Carol."
~WG Becoming an Energy Systems Consultant
Read what other members are saying about Green Career Central here....
|
|
This Week's Drawing for a
30-Day Trial Membership: gcfreedman
If this is the beginning of your email address, contact us with a subject line of "Trial Membership" and we'll tell you how to get signed up for your 30-day trial membership to GreenCareerCentral.com. You must reply within 2 weeks of the date of this newsletter.
Current Members...you didn't think we'd leave you out, did you? If you see the beginning of your email address, we'll add one more month to your membership.
|
What's New at GreenCareerCentral.com
Ask Us a Question
Feeling a bit stuck? Have a burning question? Did you know you can ask Carol your question at no charge? Provide a bit of detail so Carol can respond with a personalized answer to your question.
Explore Green Industries
Whether you are exploring green industries to know what’s out there or gaining more in depth knowledge of your target green industry, our industry profiles will give you an overview and a starting point for your research.
Listen to One of Our Cool Green Career Interviews
One of the best ways to learn what's possible in the Green Economy is to hear from people who have green careers. Click here to listen to, or read, one of our four Cool Green Career Interviews.
Did You Know...
...if you missed a Tip of the Week, you can read the archived publications?
Green Career Tips Archive
About Us
|
|
Green Career CentralTM is a virtual career center for motivated professionals who are ready to find a green career that fully expresses their passions, skills, values, and talents.
Carol McClelland, PhD, founder and Executive Director of Green Career Central, has helped thousands of people discover their dream career through her book Your Dream Career For Dummies and her work with individuals, groups, and students. Together with her team of experts, researchers and writers, Carol has pulled together eighteen years of experience into a broad collection of how-to articles, resources, support, and teleclasses to help you find your way to make a difference and prosper. Carol is currently writing Green Careers for Dummies, which will be available in bookstores in late January/early February 2010.
Why not have the green career you've been dreaming of? You can struggle on your own or gain support throughout your journey. The decision is obvious ... Join Us Now!
|
Copyright (c) 2007-2009. Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Green Career CentralTM is a trademark of Transition Dynamics Enterprises, Inc
PO Box 354, Menlo Park, CA 94026
650 322 8661 | Contact
Subscriber Information
|
