Tips to Relaunch Your Career and Business Development

When considering launching a career comeback, you must start by researching what is necessary to succeed in your desired role. Whether you want to climb the corporate ladder or become a rainmaker, this is true. You need to understand the skills (legal and not), behaviors, and experiences that will better position you for the desired role. To do this, you must have clarity about what you want. If you do not spend some time speaking to people and doing informational interviews to obtain that clarity, you will not be successful.

You then must assess yourself against these attributes. If this is difficult for you—look at reviews and ask people for feedback. Do not go to "yes" people—to be successful in the process, you must have the unvarnished truth. If someone is blowing smoke to make you feel better, they are hurting your chances of success.

Write down what you have accomplished and done well and what you need to work on.

Tip 1: Develop a Plan

Based on your assessment, brainstorm ideas of steps and actions that you will take without judgment. Then you should evaluate each of these ideas based on how much impact they would have and the investment of time. Once you have completed that review—leverage these ideas to begin to draft your plan. You want the steps that you take to be as specific as possible. For example, increasing your network is not sufficient. The following is:

• Attend X conferences and meet at least X people at the conference and follow up with Y.
• I will meet or call with A, B, C, D at least once a month.
• I will meet with or call E, F, G at least once a quarter.
• I will check social media X times a week and comment or reach out to people who….

Plans are most effective and efficient when you write them down. In doing so, you create a roadmap that you don't reinvent whenever you have time.

It is also critical to build into your plan review mechanisms to see how you are doing against it and whether you need to modify it. It is also best to create accountability in the plan.

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Tip 2: Mindset

One of the biggest de-railers to a successful plan is your mindset. To be successful, you must believe that you can be successful. It would be best if you had a plan to re-frame negative thoughts and to address inner thoughts that are taking you off plan. This re-framing starts by being able to recognize the negative thoughts and by having an approach to re-frame. You must think that this transformation is possible and surround yourself with people who feel the same thing.

Remember this transformation will take time when setting your mindset. Do not expect that you will reach your end goal in a short time. It is also best to understand that there may be failures and bumps along the way. And to view, these are learning opportunities on the journey to your dream job.

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To succeed in a comeback or reinvention, you need the correct information, a tailored plan, and a mindset aligned with your success. With these items lined up, you will soon be on the road to success.

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