I see people giving away their power at work. They tell themselves an unworkable situation cannot be altered or fixed. Once they believe the power is lost, they become lost. It’s all downhill from there.

Since the focus of my coaching practice is career, here are 3 steps you can take to get the power back:

What’s happening to you in your career? Is your job being eliminated? Is your company merging or reorganizing? Are you on your third, fourth, or fifth boss, and you don’t know what is expected of you anymore?

Sometimes in our career we feel powerless. The circumstances around us are changing and we don’t believe we have a say in how things go. Maybe you do have a say. Maybe you have more control over your circumstances than you think you do. Maybe you have the ability to map out the course your career will take as well as the power and energy to complete the journey.

Where will this power come from? It will come from you. So, how do you create a powerful career? Follow these steps below.

1. Assess Your Situation

Maybe what you are experiencing in your career currently is not as bad as you think. Then again, maybe it’s worse. Either way, you will not know what you are dealing with until you can objectively look at what’s happening to you and around you. Take out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. (You can also use an excel spreadsheet.) In the left hand column, list the pro’s of your present situation. In the right hand column, list the con’s. Which list is longer?

Take out another sheet of paper so you can assess how bad the con’s really are. Draw a line down the middle. In the left hand column, list what you can change. In the right hand column, list what you cannot. Which list is longer?

You are looking for an objective view of your situation; a new perspective. Feelings without facts can be disserving. Getting your thoughts out of your head and on paper will give you the ability to see your situation in a whole new way.

2. Decide To Change Your Situation

Your career can improve once you decide to improve it. You would be surprised by the number of people I speak to who are waiting for unfulfilling situations to magically get better on their own. These individuals play a waiting game hoping to be victorious. Sometimes this strategy works. Most of the time it does not and they are left tired, confused, and disappointed in themselves because they failed to act.

I understand that change is not easy. Trust me that working in a bad environment is much harder than taking steps to improve it.

3. Get Your Power Back

Once you know a situation is no longer working and you have decided to change it, it’s time to become powerful. Power comes through movement. When you are moving forward, you are energized. You are on the court playing rather than sitting on the sidelines. You have your to-do list and you are checking off the items one by one. You have focus and direction. You are implementing your plan. Excuses and fear no longer deter you. You feel different because you are different. You have your power back.

My web site is at http://www.surpassyourdreams.com

Great topic Donna!

This is really important imho. You started by quoting Donna K - ”We can either choose our future or let someone else do it for us. Which would you prefer?”

I don’t think this is an either/or - more like a both/and. Yes, of course we can make our choices. And there are usually things some happening that we don’t like or would not have chosen - however ‘good’ our choices were. British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan famously referred to these ‘events’ (as he called them) as his biggest challenge.

I like the quote by biologist/geneticist Stephen Rose - he concludes his book Lifelines by writing

“We have the ability to construct our own futures, albeit in circumstances not of our own choosing.”

which seems to sum it up for me.

Personally (picking up Maryam’s point) I like to be careful about ‘not going back’… not getting reinvolved in something I already moved on from, unless there is a REALLY good reason and/or things have changed significantly. Getting more support - that’s another thing I’m working on too. If you’d like to see my own blog it’s at

http://www.sfwork.com/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=720

Cheers
Mark

Great question! More at my own blog here:

http://maryamwebster.com/blog/