“Everyone I know are bankers”, my friend said to me the other day. “I really want to change career, but all I can see are opportunities within finance – in my world, working in finance is what everyone does.”
(EVERYONE is a banker)
If you don’t work in banking, my friend’s perspective might seem funny (we’re not ALL bankers!).
But you have an everyone too.
Maybe your everyone went into the civil service after graduating from Oxbridge. Now everyone is rising nicely up the ranks and everyone takes intrepid holidays to new destinations every year. (EVERYONE works in politics).
Or perhaps your everyone settled into their career years ago, are slightly disillusioned now, but are too comfortable to do anything about it. (EVERYONE lives for the weekend. NO-ONE loves their job).
If your EVERYONE is doing something that you no longer want, it can be doubly hard to see a way out.
In an extreme example, when people’s EVERYONES think it is normal to live on government benefits and never work for a living, then families stay living off the system for generations. That’s what their everyone does.
Your EVERYONE says that it’s normal to have a nicely paying but unfulfilling job. That only ‘lucky’ people get the freedom of their dream career (not us, not people with our skillset). Right?
If you want to change your life, it’s time to change your everyone. That doesn’t mean you have to give up your friends or family: it means inviting new everyones into your world.
Here are two ways of doing this:
1. Read them.
A simple way to find a new everyone is via books and blogs. When I am writing about breaking the old-fashioned rules of work, I surround myself with books by thinkers (like Seth Godin) who do that all the time.
Soon I think: “EVERYONE starts new and exciting ventures, I’m not alone.”
2. Find them.
Another way to change your EVERYONE is to find new people. Going same pubs meeting the same people equals the same life for you.
Find a new tribe by getting out of your social zone. Join new groups (such as via Meetup.com), find new online communities, or reconnect with people who’ve fallen out of touch but who move in different circles.
I’m doing this right now – my current ‘everyone’ is a writer. Here’s how that’s affected my thinking:
“EVERYONE has a book published… I can’t be the only one not to do it! If I don’t get published soon I won’t be as good as EVERYONE ELSE. NO ONE is unpublished.”
Of course, I know intellectually that most people are not published authors – but when you’re surrounded with people who are, you start to think that way.
See how it works? The EVERYONE you surround yourself with determines what you think is possible AND where you think you should be.
- So what are you going to do to get an EVERYONE that has the life you want?
- Where will you go to find that EVERYONE who thinks that changing career and going Free Range is normal?
Get free of the cubicle and create a freedom-filled, fulfilling work-life with my free weekly love letter to career changers: It’s a mix of adoration and butt kicking,packed with exclusive tips (stuff that’s not posted here) to start creating your I-want-it-now Free Range work-life in 2012.
