The Time is Now: Create the Career (and Life) You Deserve

It's almost November - are you happy with where you are in your career? Your life?

Let's talk this month about an often neglected but crucial understanding you must have if you want to achieve the success you deserve. Let's talk about recognizing and understanding your true value, yourself.

This notion came to my attention during last month's launch of my new Create the Career (and Life) You Deserve program. Participants came from all over the country for this daylong coaching intensive. I was delighted to work with such an impressive array of professionals, ranging from educators, technologists and chief legal officers to marketers and public relations experts.

If you've heard me speak or worked with me one-on-one, you know that I particularly enjoy showing you how to communicate your value to your work place. It's the centerpiece of my six Executive Success Principles®, and it's a critical component in moving your career forward. Yet sometimes we need to take a step back. With my Create the Career (and Life) You Deserve participants, the challenge wasn't so much around spreading the word about their value - instead, these brilliant professionals needed help in pinpointing, embracing and describing their value in the first place.

"If we don't define ourselves, others will - and their definition will inevitably be inadequate."

- Charmaine McClarie

Recognizing your value is something I recommend that everyone revisit from time to time, regardless of where you are in your career. How do you do this? Sometimes it means considering what you bring to the table every day. Sometimes it means looking back on career moments where you've particularly shone, or where your contribution was what tipped a project from uncertainty to success. It's really a matter of considering your work history as a dramatic narrative with you as the central player.

What is that narrative and how do you appear in it? Once you understand that, you can then begin shaping and writing your own narrative for consideration by others, making clear the value that you bring. In other words, communicating your value is a two-step process. The second step is perhaps better understood, which is the process of presenting your narrative in various ways to others. The first step is recognizing and understanding your true value, for yourself. Because how can you possibly convince someone else about something unless you believe it?

The Create the Career (and Life) You Deserve sessions were introspective and transformative as participants dug deep into their work history and into those moments of particular success. Once fully understood, conveying that value to others isn't difficult at all. It comes naturally.

Kristin Quiroz BayonaFor Kristin Quiroz Bayona, a PR Specialist at Gensler, our session changed the way she approached her six-month review. "Charmaine helped me realize that I need to work in partnership with my manager to accomplish my career goals - and to make it easy for her to help me," Kristin says. "My a-ha moment came when Charmaine asked me if I was making my manager responsible for my career. That question really made me see the situation from my manager's perspective. It's always exciting when I truly understand where someone is coming from because that's when real change can happen!"

Other participants were struggling with difficult bosses and just about anything having to do with negotiation.

Carrie Cahill

All of our participants are reviewing their resumes with expert Carrie Cahill - that's another step I recommend to everyone, even if you love your job and have no intention of leaving anytime soon. The resume writing process is very helpful in recognizing your value and shaping your narrative.

I'll be eager to hear about our participants' progress over the next many months. And I'll likely hold another Create the Career (and Life) You Deserve program next spring. Interested? Please let me know, and we'll get the ball rolling.

Peace and blessings,

Charmaine McClarie

More Kudos for Create the Career (and Life) You Deserve

Leigh Anne Preston

Here's a great testimonial from our Create the Career (and Life) You Deserve program. It's from Leigh Anne Preston, who travelled from Louisville (one of my favorite cities) to be with us:

"Charmaine's systematic process was helpful on several levels. She has challenged me to go deeper into myself. Through a series of questions prior to our meeting, I was able to zero in on my personal vision, establish professional boundaries and reflect on, and prioritize, my goals.

"The view I had of myself professionally was to fit into one of three boxes: teaching, philanthropy or business. In our meeting, Charmaine was quickly able to draw a horizontal connection that brings all of my worlds together. She recognized that my passion for teaching could be the catalyst that fuels my business and philanthropy work. In other words, teaching is not limited to a classroom of children for me; it can occur in other settings.

"I left our meeting confident, lighter and reenergized about the possibilities, and I now have a go-forward plan that will get me to the next level."