When trying to change careers, or start a second act, it’s important to remind yourself of what you’ve already accomplished.
In the spirit of Mae West, my mother once said, “I never met a machine I didn’t like.” Becoming a mother when she was still a teen, she went to business school at night and worked two jobs until she left waitressing behind to pursue a career in an office environment. As a working mother in the era of the “MadMen” TV show, she tamed the business machines of her time and had little in common with the housewives on her block. This led to her computer curiosity and savviness, allowing her to assist others with their computer skills, culminating in an opportunity to manage a fitness center when most her age were retired.
As her daughter, I also found myself drawn to technology. I started my professional career as a typesetter/graphic artist for printers, advertising companies, and publishers in San Francisco and later segued into technical writing/production editing for high tech firms of Silicon Valley, offering publishing tool support. As more and more people become involved with computers, blogs, and social networking sites, my skills are even more in demand.
I really noticed this when I began pursuing fiction writing and started interacting with other writers online. Many writers come from impressive backgrounds, such as doctors, lawyers, scientists, FBI agents, for example. But they don’t have the technology depth to their background that I do. And journalists, as a group, have the least technology skills. When I was blogging for the Orlando Sentinel, my news producer said that journalists could barely handle voice mail.
But the point isn’t to elevate myself or disparage other groups. The point is that we all have expertise that comes with age and experience. So when you’re stepping into a new field, looking for that second career, and finding yourself in an environment where you may feel overwhelmed by being a newbie or starting over, don’t forget to bring the skills you do have. And let others know you have them. You never know where that might take you.
Women have had to deal with these issues for decades. In the past, our mothers and grandmothers may have been full-time stay-at-home wives and mothers who didn’t work outside the home. But when faced with changing circumstances, such as a divorce or money issues or boredom, women found themselves attempting to obtain a paying job outside-the-home and met with blank stares as they handed over blank resumes.
It’s not that much different today when trying to change careers. Julia Cameron says in The Artist’s Way that you must be willing to be a beginner. Good advice, but it can also be overwhelming. While you’re starting something new, it’s important to remind yourself of your accomplishments and, perhaps, bring them to the new venture.
For example, as I pursue life as a novelist, I’m still working at the day job as a technical writer. But I haven’t forgotten my past in publishing production so when a technology issue arises on the job, I volunteer to solve the problem. Or when my fellow fiction writers have technology questions, I offer my knowledge or do research to help them if I can without impacting my own schedule. And I find it very rewarding. In a new world that is filled with rejections and insecurities, I’m reminded of my accomplishments and worth.
And when the fiction world states writing advice, I have enough publishing experience to know what is a “rule” and what is a “preference.” And, believe me, the fiction world is full of preferences, although many are happy to state these preferences as rules. We must learn to trust ourselves and believe that we often have the knowledge inside ourselves.
Some of the best advice I’ve ever heard was in the book, The War of Art where Steven Pressfield explains how the world is made up of hierarchies and territories. Hierarchies are like high school, where you seek to impress those who appear to be above you in importance. I see this often in writing communities, where those who seem to be a bigger writing success attract the most people to their blogs or Facebook status. We see it throughout all of life in peer pressure, whether seven, seventeen, or seventy.
A hierarchy lifestyle is devastating to an artist. I say it’s devastating to anyone. We want to leave high school behind and be our true selves, regardless of what everyone else is doing or seem to be accomplishing. For us, we must acknowledge our areas of expertise, and focus on our own work. We must seek approval from ourselves; we must look within.