Theme for April : Power of Proactive Networking

Would you like to know the blueprint for successful networking for your business and professional growth?

Join Pinkvox for an exciting evening on Power of Proactive Networking.

This month we welcome Jo Langdale, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development and of the Institute of Leadership and Management. Jo is the founder of Afon Aur Ltd – an holistic HR consultancy, specializing in learning and development. She loves networking and is a qualified and experienced life and performance coach.
Jo’s background was in the Public Sector, where she worked on challenging policy development and programme delivery in Partnership with the senior level Private and Not for Profit Sectors in the UK and abroad. She has lots of experience in networking in all kinds of situations and sectors, including currently as Director & CSR Champion for the Islington Chamber of Commerce and as Chair of the Advisory Board for NoOffenceCIC.

Jo will share her top tips on how to overcome personal barriers to networking and how to be a successful Networker to grow your business & professionally. There will be a brief Q&A at the end, where you will have the opportunity to ask your questions on effective Networking.

Date: 18th April 2013

Venue:
Thistle Hotel , The Strand
London, UK, WC2N 5HX

Pinkvox - Redefining Women Empowerment - Connect . Collaborate . Change

Business Name: Brewhaha Tea
Owner: Joanne McLeod
Established: 2004
Type of Business: Tea Wholesaler
City: Glasgow
Address: 21 Watt Street, Unit 1, G5 8RR
Website: www.brewhahatea.co.uk
Email: sales@brewhahatea.co.uk
Twitter: BrewhahaT
Facebook: www.facebook.com/brewhahatea
Instagram: BrewhahaTea
Phone: 0808 178 9357

How did you come up with your business name?

By inviting my friends over one night and supplying them with lashings of red wine to come up with a name for a new tea company. By 2am, Brewhaha Tea was born (and lots of sore heads the next day).

Did you work in this industry before?

No, I worked in advertising as a TV producer.

When did you decide to work for yourself?

After creating two lovely children, I found the time it needed to be a mum and a producer just did not work out for me.  I tend not to call myself an entrepreneur; I’m a hard working woman.

Do you have a business partner?

Yes, but I’m in the process of buying him out.

How do you balance work and life?

It is getting harder as I’m exporting worldwide. I have found myself talking to customers at 3:00 in the morning.

Do you separate your work from your home life?

There is no cut off point; my family are great supporters.

Has your business won any awards?

Yes, Great Taste Awards from the Guild of Fine Foods.

Does your business play an active role in your community?

Glasgow is a great city. Brewhaha Tea sponsors local events and charities.

What kind of challenges did you face when you first started out on your own?

Cash flow was a massive problem. Every time Brewhaha took a leap in sales, I’d have to find money to buy more stock.

What kind of new challenges do you face today?

Exporting is a challenge, as is protecting my brand.

What do you wish you knew when you first started out?

Cash is King!

What do you love most about being an entrepreneur?

What I love most about being a hard-working woman is that my children are very proud of what I have achieved.

Could you imagine being anything else? Would you even want to be?

Queen of England would be nice, but that’s never going to happen. I want to be a good wife, mother and businesswoman.

Is there an area of new growth that you’ve recently implemented or are planning to in the near future?

I would like to have a chain of Brewhaha tearooms. I think it’s a strong brand and would lend itself very well to any high street or city.

What advice would you give to a new entrepreneur?

Take it slowly and never make the same mistake twice.

Carolyn Grisold

Carolyn Grisold is the Managing Editor of Women of Influence Magazine (North America) and a contributor to various print and online publications in Canada and the United Kingdom. To suggest a female entrepreneur, please email petty@inningsgate.com.

To read more articles by Carolyn, click here

 

Pinkvox - Redefining Women Empowerment - Connect . Collaborate . Change

By Chris Jaffe

Pinkvox - Redefining Women Empowerment - Connect . Collaborate . Change

By Chris Jaffe

Pinkvox - Redefining Women Empowerment - Connect . Collaborate . Change

By Chris Jaffe

Pinkvox - Redefining Women Empowerment - Connect . Collaborate . Change

What does the patriarchy look like? I have pondered this question recently as I tried to describe to a male friend how and why sexism happens and what that is like to experience for women.

I thought to myself, if patriarchy were an object, what would it be?

I suppose I might say that it’s a bit like Lego. Like Lego it’s made up of many small bricks one on top of another and it can be seamlessly put together. Like Lego it’s synthetic, it has lots of sharp corners, it’s tough, hard-wearing and well-advertised. Kids get the hang of it quickly and adults [let’s all admit] play with it too. It can break down into bits and reorganise into a different configuration. And when you end up stepping on the edge of it, it hurts.

As a feminist, I am sometimes challenged by doubters and defenders of male dominance to produce proof that sexism exists by pointing out ‘the individual sexist who started this all’ or ‘the man in charge’ or ‘this alleged secret society running a conspiratorial war against women’.

After which, I launch into a long description of childhood socialisation, contraception bans, legal non-personhood in marriage, pay gaps created by hidden discrimination, maternity and paternity leave, street harassment, religious indoctrination, rape culture and oh… it’s all a bit too much for them. They didn’t expect it would be a complicated thing to understand, they just wanted to stop me in my tracks. They really want me to say ‘it’s all down to women. If we can get women to do X or not do Y we’ll solve it.’

Doubters and defenders don’t think of themselves as sexists, nor do they know anyone who calls themselves a sexist. Therefore there are no sexists. Therefore there can be no sexism. They think, if a complex phenomenon exists there must be an agent driving it and without the King of Patriarchy before them sporting an appropriately phallic hat and giving lessons on being a royal knob to women, how could women’s oppression come about?

In fact, without a big bad agent-of-sexism it all seems to occur by accident or chance, and things which occur by chance aren’t anybody’s fault…

But, don’t feminists describe male dominance as a complex, large scale and interlocking system in which some people are at fault? Not able to see how it could work like this- without a leader- many men doubt whether sexism exists at all. Most people have a narrow idea of how control and domination operates and of what oppression looks like. It’s something to do with being clapped in irons isn’t it? Never seen it, mate.

Patriarchy was not caused by one mythic royal dude, who put men in charge of everything and ordered everyone else to follow suit. It’s not a man that’s behind it, but men. Not just men, but all of society.

What does the patriarchy look like? Perhaps a more complex picture of what it looks like ‘from above’ might be achieved by looking at termites. A termite colony to be precise. No seriously, stick with me…

Termites, like most insects, live in a rigidly structured super-society of millions of individuals, and are known as the master architects of nature for their nests and distinctive termite mounds.

Some termite species live in vast subterranean chambers that can extend thirty metres in diameter. The mounds of other species can reach up to nine metres in height. The mound is the ingenious life support system of the colony, constructed to keep the nest in a state of perfect homeostasis. It is both a ventilation system which creates an internal air current replacing stale warm air with fresh, and a central heating system. In fact, temperature inside the nest can be regulated to within 1 degree centigrade of the optimum, as termites open and close ventilation shafts. Underground there are living quarters for each class of termite, garden chambers where colony excreta is recycled for indoor ‘crop farming’ of fungus to provide food, and communal nurseries. New colonies sometimes occupy and repair the abandoned mounds of others to save building time and effort. Some species of termite build mounds that are flat like a blade and aligned north-to-south with the magnetic poles [compensating for wind, uneven terrain and able to withstand plane flooding of course] so that at midday when the sun is directly overhead the smallest surface area is in direct sunlight, and in the morning and evening when the temperature cools, the sun hits the wide flat side and gives the nest central heating. Pretty sweet setup they’ve built there. Their building capabilities far outstrip our own and are being used as an example in endeavours to create energy efficient ways of living, and yet each termite is, to put it crudely, as thick as sh*t.

How did such tiny and unintelligent creatures build a looming and complex structure without talking to each other about why and how, and without one termite being in charge?

No single termite has the intelligence or power to design and control the whole building process on its own. Such a termite would surely be a diabolical mastermind of human proportions, and yet the mound itself is a major work of architecture. Simply, each termite goes about its business and reacts to the environment and other termites based on a simple set of rules or cues with which it is programmed.

For example, one termite spots a nice steady bit of earth and her rule tells her to leave a chemical signal there which she duly does, and then wanders off for a meal of delicious vegetation fibres. Another termite comes along and his rule tells him that when he picks up the chemical signal he is to set down a blob of soil and spit on top, which he duly does before bringing the Queen her dinner of delicious vegetation fibres. A third termite wanders past [on her way back from a meal of delicious vegetation fibres] and her rule tells her that if she sees a blob of soil and spit anywhere about she is to put another one right next to it. And so on.

Given enough time and enough termites a wall is built and even though the termites are not capable of thinking ‘let’s build a wall here’ nevertheless one emerges. The interaction of many individual termites based on basic rule following creates an amazingly intricate structure: a complex system emerging from simplicity, without a controller or designer. This idea is referred to as Swarm Intelligence: the collective behaviour of decentralized, self-organized systems in nature.

It is perhaps because we have a bias towards assuming there must be an agent behind emerging patterns and in control of human affairs that we are asked to locate The King of Patriarchy; because we are complex intelligent beings capable of controlling and designing things and the world around us is filled with such things. As a side note, this tendency to assume the existence of a designer because of complexity observed in the world could also explain why belief in God is incredibly prevalent.

This idea is a first basic step in understanding how patriarchy manifests itself. Patriarchy as we experience it today is the social structure that has emerged from our many countless interactions over time, interactions that are regulated by two faulty rules we have been programmed with. Julia Serano describes two coexistent categories of sexism excellently in Whipping Girl, from which these rules are extracted: the first rule is that women are inferior to men and men are superior to women in all respects, and the second is that the sexes are opposite and separate from each other in all respects. These gender rules guiding our interactions are a bug in the human system, and we must be de-programmed of them. They are creating a lopsided termite mound, one with gaping holes, death traps, cave-ins and frequent floods. One that cripples, traps, starves and crushes the individuals inside.

We could ask ourselves forever where these gender rules came from or who first instituted them, but what matters is that we becoming conscious of them in ourselves. There is no one root of patriarchy because there is no one root of anything.

The King of Patriarchy is you. And me. All of us who have not yet de-programmed ourselves of those two gender rules and are acting on them, consciously or not.

After glimpsing patriarchy through the lens of nature [or glimpsing nature through the lens of patriarchy…] it can seem as though male dominance is a social order that is innate in human biology, ‘naturally arising’ in society by chance, or so large and inevitable as to be impossible to change. What a depressing thought, and what a common thought to have when trying to understand human beings by looking at other animals.

Like termites we are indeed biologically programmed with some rules. Rules like EAT FOOD. SLEEP AT NIGHT. AVOID FIRE.

Luckily, what throws a spanner into the works of this whole analogy is this that human beings are not termites, we are not biological automata. In human societies children observe the emergent behaviour occurring around them and carefully deduce the underlying rules. This is a cultural activity.

Our free decisions, our more varied choices, our complex personalities, our moral feelings and our rational processes interfere with ‘rule following’ and ‘reactions to cues’. Human beings are political agents and cultural participants, and we can twist the shape and design of society into anything we want. We can repair it, we can improve it. Like the termites, it’s not possible for one individual alone, but unlike the termites we can change our behaviour.  We can choose to live by a different set of rules and react to a different set of cues, and see these examples filter outwards and have an effect on others. Some of the new rules will be picked up by some people, who will act on them some of the time. And slowly social change happens. That’s the starting block of feminism.

That’s termite style social activism.

Emma-Rose Cornwall

Emma-Rose is a radical feminist writer and artist from East Anglia, who is part of the activist network Feminist Action Cambridge. She most enjoys hanging off the cliff edge of radical feminist analysis and dipping her toes in the river of theatrical solutions.
At Pinkvox, Emma-Rose is a features writer. To read more articles by Emma-Rose click here

Pinkvox - Redefining Women Empowerment - Connect . Collaborate . Change

Google on the word “competition”, you will find 728,000,000 results, while the word “collaboration” will only give you 296,000,000 results. For every web-page that acknowledges the value of collaboration, there are 2.6 web-pages that hale competition as the way to succeed and survive.

But we all know the simple maths – more brains are better than one; collaboration is not just a good way to get work done, it is crucial to the survival and sustainability of the future. However, we still continue to live in competitive times where the cultural emphasis on competition and male template of doing business rule the roost.

In a recent survey, 150 high-powered women were asked “do women really want power?” Their response was unanimous yet equivocal “Yes and No”. One of the big reasons these women cited for such perspective – they strongly preferred to collaborate and cooperate rather than brazenly call the shots. However they also felt collaboration can often be a double-edged sword. An overemphasis on consensus is generally perceived as being weak and having a lack of confidence.

Women are naturally known to enjoy collaborating, supporting and nurturing. Just because we are in a business setting, there is no reason to deny our feminine-side and stop doing what we are good at. In 1981, social psychologists David and Roger Johnson at the University of Minnesota published an analysis of 122 studies of performance in competitive vs. collaborative situations. The studies, carried out from 1924 to 1980, showed not only that cooperation promoted better achievement in majority of the cases, but the more complicated the task, the greater advantages of cooperation. It has been proven time and again that collaborative dynamics can be far more effective at producing innovation and sustainability than pure competition. As the saying goes “Global competition may have sent people into outer space for the first time, but now collaboration between large and small nations keeps them there.”

Collaboration is a both an art and a science. Right ingredients can help make a collaborative project provide a great experience as well as great results. However collaborations can go wrong as well. Here are three key tenets you should keep in mind to ensure your Collaboration is effective:

1. Do you share the same purpose?

Working together itself doesn’t mean we are collaborating. Many collaborations fail because people involved aren’t sure what they’re trying to accomplish. They also assume that everyone within the team has a similar notion of what collaboration means. When you decide to work together, it’s crucial that everyone in the team understands and agrees to the purpose of the collaboration, the degree of commitment required, and the expectations of partners involved in the effort. Collaboration can’t be forced on someone who doesn’t want to participate. If you do, that will end up being your project in itself. Collaboration has to be mutually beneficial and requires a well-defined relationship to achieve common purpose and goals.

2. Do you have a trusting relationship?

We all recognize that to execute anything successfully – from relationships to product launches, anywhere more than one person is involved the foundation requires trust. Similarly any collaboration has to be based on mutual trust of the people involved. When two different people come together for collaboration, diverse viewpoints, working styles, or attitudes are common. As a team, you need to agree to foster an environment of respect and tolerance for different ideas and opinions. At the start of the project, everyone needs to communicate and agree on where those differences and commonalities are. And throughout the project, participants need to regularly communicate with honesty to maintain their trust and respect.

3. Have you got your Collaboration Agreement in writing?

We often think twice before proposing a written agreement covering the details of collaboration, fearing that might stain our relationship. However, not having a written agreement opens doors to disagreement and uncertainty. In an unforeseen scenario of collaboration meltdown you will be left uncovered and vulnerable. This is why it’s very important to create a collaboration agreement. The agreement (also known as Memorandum of Understanding) should lay out the rules that govern the collaboration and details such as

• Common Purpose
• Values and assumptions
• Timeframe and milestones
• Roles and responsibilities
• Policies in terms of competition and conflicts of interest
• Norms of participation, decision-making, communication and conflict resolution
• Financial relationships and ownership

Remember effective collaboration requires nurturing and care, commitment to shared purpose, jointly developed structure and shared responsibility, mutual trust, authority and accountability for success, and sharing of resources, risks, and rewards.

References:

http://www.brasstackthinking.com/2010/03/6-ingredients-for-successful-collaboration/

*** Article by Pinkvox member Mary Robinson

Pinkvox - Redefining Women Empowerment - Connect . Collaborate . Change

Would you? Could you?
You are busy and feeling stressed with an over-flowing work schedule but what do you say to someone who is asking for your help? Do you have difficulty saying “No” without feeling guilty?

We’ve all been there before. Some women are troubled by the idea that they do not want to disappoint. For others, they yield to avoid conflict or confrontation in the workplace or social situation. Guilt is woven so tightly in most of us that no matter how gentle we are with our family friends and/or colleagues – we can’t help but having feelings of guilt and shame when we say, “No.”

In the world there are limitless wants but limited resources to fulfill those wants. The same holds true about your time. You may want to help as many people as possible, do as many activities or work but, one thing remains constant – there are only 24 hours in a day. Time is scarce. This is why it is very important to define your priorities, and build your personal boundaries to meet those priorities.

At first, saying “No” might seem very difficult and create feelings of guilt but, making reasonable choices today will put you in a happier place tomorrow.

So what do you need to consider when politely declining a request and eliminate feelings of guilt?

Step 1: Understand where you stand

What is scarce for you and why you should say “No” – is it for the sake of your sanity ? or is it for the sake of your time? or perhaps it is for the sake of your money?

Step 2: Make a guilt free “No” list

Attacked this exercise of saying “No” by making a list. Make headings such as Work, Family/Friends, Situations and start to fill in things which you can say “No” under each heading. For e.g.

• Work – Say No to working after 7pm
• Family/Friends – Say No to talking on the phone when need to work
• Situations – Say No to all activities that exclude your children during their term break

Step 3: Say No depending on the requestor and their request

If the requestor is another colleague: explain your situation – “I have too many commitments.”

Express your wish to help but you are unable to commit due to too many priorities. This makes it easier for the other person to understand you are too busy to take up their offer. Your boss, unaware of your heavy workload, is asking you to expand your schedule. It may be wise to point out that you are spreading yourself thin juggling too many tasks.

If your requestor is a supervisor: say “no” gently – “I’d love to but…”

This is a gentle way of saying no to the other party to soften the blow. It is encouraging as it makes them aware that you like the idea but have different needs at the moment.

If your requestor is an acquaintance: say a “maybe” than a firm “no.”

Use this method if you are interested but do not want to say “yes” immediately. Chances are that new requests will pop up but you are unsure of committing to a particular decision. A sincere person will be satisfied with a short delay.

If your requestor is an family or friend: tell the truth and your thoughts behind the No
Be honest and authentic with your near and dear ones and explain your situation.

Step 4: Suggest alternatives or other advice that may help the requester

“I’m not the best person to help on this. Why don’t you try….?”

This is a great way to temporarily hold off a request especially if you stuck in the middle of an important task. Ask them to reconnect with you but at your convenience.

Another tactic is to steer the person to another colleague or someone you know who may have the more resources and expertise to help.

Step 5. Say it on time as per the situation and accept the truth

The easiest and most direct way of saying “No”. Saying it outright is not as earth-shattering as it sounds. We often build up too many barriers in our mind to say “No”. You’ll be surprised when the response is not as bad as it seems!

The bottom line here is to anticipate what could be the worst outcome from your saying “No.”
Naturally, it is not easy to say “No” but it is how you say “No” affects the outcome. If you decide to say “No”, your decision will be guided by facts rather than emotion. Employ these steps as a reality check to give yourself time to evaluate your limits.

Josephine Woode

Jo is a freelance writer living in London who specializes in How to articles and Career Development. If she is not browsing through the shelves in bookshops, she will be power walking around parks to keep fit.
At Pinkvox, Jo writes about KickStart and WorkLife. To read more articles by Jo, click here

 

Pinkvox - Redefining Women Empowerment - Connect . Collaborate . Change

Having trouble winning over a tricky potential client? Tired of hearing “that’s too expensive?” Your competitor is selling the same product for a cheaper price? Worried about a bank manager who is standing in your way of larger business loan? Indecisive whether to get married?How to spend money? Endless argument on who picks up the kids?
In all everyday matters most of us are either negotiationg with others or ourselves and be it money, resource, time or opportunity for roles, there are many reasons why we should negotiate effectively.

However for lots of us, negotiation is an intimidating process. It is often said that when it comes to negotiation, women donot ask as much as men. But research shows for negotiation to be effective its not how much we ask that defines its success but how we position ourselves during the discussion.

Effective negotiation is a skill, and like any skill, it can be learned. If you hope to be successful in your negotiations, you will need to learn some basic strategies and techniques. Knowing the following information and planning correctly, will increase your chances of successful negotiations!

To start with, the rule you need to remember to play the game of an effective negotiation is :
You have to tie in what you need with how it can benefit the other party. Negotiation should end in an agreement that creates a win-win situation for both the parties.

Pre-Negotiation preparation:

All negotiations are dynamic and one-off situations. The most important element of effective negotiation is preparation, preparation, preparation.
Step 1> Identify what is negotiable and what is not. Make a list of them so that you remain focused only on the negotiable part.
Step 2>Collect as much information as possible about the the other party’s situation especially about their behavioral trait, needs and wants.The person with the most information usually fares better. In case of negotiating against competitors, do your homework to prevent possible headaches over pricing and clashes with competitors.
Step 3>Identify the best and worst outcomes. Build alternate scenarios and plan your action strategy to deal with resistances. Brainstorm to find out why they can say “no” and how to frame issues without blaming anyone.
Step 4>Practice at every opportunity. Many times we hesitate to negotiate because we lack the confidence to do so. Develop your power to influence by practising the art of negotiation.

When the time arrives to negotiate, follow these strategies to sharpen your skills.

Listen First:

Being the first one to listen is crucial to building trust. Just by getting the listening part of a negotiation right, you can start the game on a higher score. However, really paying attention to what the other person has to say is hard and requires to set your mind in “problem solving” mode.Bobby Covic, author of Everything’s Negotiable says“There’s a saying among negotiators that whoever talks the most during a negotiation loses.”
Break the ice by talking about a neutral topic of mutual interest. It helps both parties to relax and initiate the flow of conversation. Move on to the problem by saying, “I want to talk about an important issue, but first I want to hear what you have to say about it.”

Persistently think big:

Be aware that people often ask for more than they expect to get.Resist the temptation to give in to the worst outcomes that you have identified and to stop negotiating once that minimum is met. Aim higher. The higher the targets, the better the outcomes. Anchoring on targets keeps you in the negotiation longer and improves outcomes. You should test the offers against targets and not “worst case” outcomes. Often women are more likely to accept the first offer that they receive hence they tend to receive less generous offers than men. Being persistent has great potential for improving outcomes.

Play with right attitude:

Show that you are interested in the conversation and following their thoughts by visual signs like “leaning in” and “nodding your head”. Do not over do by constantly nodding or saying “right” over and over as that will seem insincere. Aim to keep your cool through out the conversation. Avoid words such as “we disagree” – a phrase that throws a person to the defensive. Research shows that women tend to be better negotiators when they are acting as an agent or negotiating on behalf of someone. Treat yourself as a customer and play the cards as if you are negotiating on behalf of “you the customer” or your family.

Be prepared that negotiations often do not unfold smoothly. When the other party is focused on asserting power or on undermining the negotiating relationship through personal attacks, negotiations can be very difficult. A key to staying in the negotiation and improving outcomes is to learn to ‘turn’ the negotiation process. Deborah Kolb of Harvard Business School suggests “Turns” are strategies that can be used to redirect negotiations to a more productive process. An example of a turn is – an interruption. Using interruption disrupts the momentum of tactics, allowing negotiators to change their strategy.

References:
1. What Women Want: Gender at the Negotiating Table – www.alumni.mbs.edu/index.cfm?objectId=A45DAF08-D60E-CDDB-80030535F6AE5D8C
2. The Art of Negotiation – www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200701/the-art-negotiation

Josephine Woode

Jo is a freelance writer living in London who specializes in How to articles and Career Development. If she is not browsing through the shelves in bookshops, she will be power walking around parks to keep fit.
At Pinkvox, Jo writes about KickStart and WorkLife. To read more articles by Jo, click here

 

Pinkvox - Redefining Women Empowerment - Connect . Collaborate . Change

Are you looking to take the next step on your career path? Planning to re-enter the workforce again after having children or a break? Are you sensing that continuous nag of career discontentment? Regardless of your reasons, the right career is out there for everyone. And NOW is the time to go for it.

What do you want to be when you grow up? – We have been asked this time and time again as children. Yet the answer to a very simple question is not always clear cut when we become adults. Many factors dictate our career paths including our natural talents, our hopes and dreams as well as family wishes and the unexpected.

You may feel doubts about being in the right career and you are more likely to succeed if you are in a field you feel passionate about. So how do you get started? Read on to gain an insight in to finding your dream role.

1. Contemplate your future

So what are your interests and passions? This can open doors to a new career.

2. Focus on your dreams

Jot down everything that comes to mind. Take note of projects that inspire you and reflect on female positive role models. Pay attention to why certain activities make you happy.

3. Develop plans to over obstacles

Do you feel that it is too much work to switch careers and can’t imagine leaving it all behind?

Map out a plan and break down large tasks in to smaller chunks. The payoff is a passport to a more successful career.

4. Resist the doubt of not having enough skills

Low self-esteem or awareness may lead you to undersell your marketability. Consider skills from you hobbies and volunteering, rather than just jobs. You probably have more skills then you think.

Consider going to evening classes to upgrading your skill sets without quitting your job.

5. Set aside the fear of unknown

You may feel lucky to have a job in the rocky economic climate but research your options for the long term. Chances are that you may find a career with more stability.

6. Identify occupations that match your interests

There are many ways to translate what you love doing in to a new career:-

a. Career tests : Career tests, quizzes and personality assessments can help you identify your skills and talents.

b. Networking : Talking to someone in your chosen field can help you gain a sense of expectation. Sign up for open days and conferences. Visit Business Link for more information.
Importantly, networking will help you start building contacts, helping you to land your dream role in the future.

c. Tester Courses : Attend some tester courses to check if the particular field is really as interesting as it may look.

7. Evaluate your Strengths and Weaknesses

A. Identify your skills you have and the skills required by listing your transferable skills. They can be applied to almost any field and normally includes:-

• Communication (both written and oral)
• Time management
• Computer and Technology
• Management and Leadership experience
• Foreign language skills
• Project management skills

B. List your accomplishments which can turn out to be a confidence booster to uncover the skills you’ve developed.

C. Brainstorm with trusted friends and colleagues to identify overlooked skills.

8. Develop Your Skills and Experience

Don’t despair at any shortage of skills and experience. There are many ways to upgrade your skills including:-

• Job training opportunities
• Enrolling for further education
• Sign up or evening classes such as basic accounting, computing and starting your own business
• Becoming a volunteer intern

9. Starting your own business

If you are fed up with a long commute or a demanding boss, the thought of running your own business can be very appealing.
It’s essential to do your own homework to find your niche and an understanding of the realities of being a female business owner.Make sure you are committed about your business idea. It may be a while before it takes off.
Take time to analyse your area of interest. Are you fulfilling a need? What is your business plan? Who are your potential customers and investors?

10. Final Tips

Pace yourself as career change doesn’t happen overnight yet it can be an overwhelming process. With commitment and motivation, you will find a career that matches your true calling.Remember your life is not little, and your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
So what are you waiting for?

Free your inner hero now and accept the hero’s quest!

Josephine Woode

Jo is a freelance writer living in London who specializes in How to articles and Career Development. If she is not browsing through the shelves in bookshops, she will be power walking around parks to keep fit.
At Pinkvox, Jo writes about KickStart and WorkLife. To read more articles by Jo, click here

 

Pinkvox - Redefining Women Empowerment - Connect . Collaborate . Change