Which season best describes your
present needs?
Taking a seasonal approach to career planning and development needs helps us to understand the nature of our particular needs at a particular time in our careers. As with the seasons, we are in a continuous process of career change throughout our lives. Self-awareness is key to understanding our needs at each career development stage. Which season best describes your current career needs?
The Spring Phase
“Spring is the time of plans and projects”
– Leo Tolstoy
The Spring phase of our career journey is all about beginnings.
Beginnings bring excitement, enthusiasm, energy. They also involve anxiety and insecurity. We question ourselves and our ability to decide what’s best for us. Career planning and development involves getting to know ourselves better. We often underestimate just how challenging it can be to begin again whether it’s moving from school to further or higher education, changing careers, moving jobs or taking on a new role. It can be a lonely, confused space. But it can also be an exciting time once we have the right supports in place.
At All Seasons Career Guidance, we will help you through the uncertainty and gain the confidence you need to begin a new adventure. A personalised career guidance service includes supporting you into a suitable educational pathway using the CAO process or other routes. It also supports those seeking employment, submitting job applications or undertaking interviews.
The Summer Phase
The Summer Phase in our careers is evident from our sense of fulfilment and achievement in our careers.
It is often a time of intense career activity when we feel confident, energised and engaged in our workplace or in our studies. The saying ‘make hay while the sun shines’ comes to mind as we seek to make the most of this time. It may involve job changes to enhance our career interests and/or promotion. It may involve additional study to support our career ambitions. We blossom when the conditions are right and when we have the right supports in place.
At All Seasons Career Guidance, we provide career development supports for those involved in changes at work or in study. We also help you plan and understand career opportunities which may be of interest to you at this stage of career development.
“In summer, the song sings itself.”
– William Carlos Williams
The Autumn Phase
“Everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn”
– Elizabeth Lawrence
The Autumn phase has two aspects to it. The first is a sense of harvesting as we acknowledge our achievements to date. We are experienced and knowledgeable in our career areas. Secondly, there is a sense that change is on the horizon. Our career interests and our career paths may feel out of alignment or incomplete.
The Autumn phase is often a busy phase involving career planning and development activities. We may seek to take on a new career challenge but unsure of how to go about it. We often question ourselves and our desire to move out of our comfort zone. We may wish to consolidate our knowledge and skills and move into a job or course of study which will give us a greater sense of fulfilment. We may re-assess our careers in light of our other aspects of our lives outside our career interests.
At All Seasons Career Guidance, we provide a range of supports which will help you appreciate your achievements to date and understand the desire for change at this time. We will also support you in planning a path towards another phase of career fulfilment.
The Winter Phase
As you might expect, the Winter phase is about endings.
We may be at the end of a contract, a career, a course of study or coming into retirement. Or we may be in a job which has served us well but is no longer fulfilling or suitable for our needs at this time. Endings can be unsettling for us and sometimes we stay in an unsuitable job or course of study just to avoid taking the next step. Or we may need to plan a positive ending experience one that leaves us with a sense of achievement, freedom and independence.
It is important to acknowledge this phase and consider what we bring with us before we embark on a new beginning. One to one Career guidance sessions can greatly support individuals at this stage which often involves insecurity and upheaval.
“The colour of springtime is in the flowers; the colour of winter is in the imagination”
– Terri Guillemets
Call us at All Seasons Career Guidance today. We will take you through what we offer and how we work.
All Seasons Career Guidance is based in southwest Donegal. Career guidance is currently available online or by phone. Appointments are also available in person in Donegal, Fermanagh, Leitrim and Sligo.
