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From: CareerNetworkingGro
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 11:03 AM
To: Eric Nilsson
Subject: [CNG] Article: You Just Have to Do It (Wall Street Journal)
You Just Have to Do It
By ALEXANDRA LEVIT
People in the midst of a career reinvention don't have the luxury of a manager who sets priorities for them. The most difficult part of making a career change is starting it, especially with only your desire to propel you.
As an independent filmmaker, Adrian Belic, 40 years old, is accustomed to making things happen. The first film he made with his brother, "Genghis Blues," won a Sundance award and received an Academy Award nomination. But despite this success, he found it difficult to get a second project off the ground.
Without funding or a major movie studio behind him, Mr. Belic returned to his "scrappy, independent roots." After speaking with three former soldiers who were delivering humanitarian aid to war zones around the world, Mr. Belic put plans in place to make a movie about them, called "Beyond the Call."
"I knew this was a great story and that I could tell it in a powerful and entertaining way," he says. Inspired, he started the project without backing.
Practice Getting Going
David Allen, the author of "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity," says an attitude like Mr. Belic's is the right one. But many people, prospective career changers included, are paralyzed by inertia because of negative circumstances like the bad economy or a chaotic workplace.
"You have to be able to take action in your life without being bumped around like a victim," he says. "It helps to recognize that being a self-starter is a set of behaviors that you can adopt."
What sort of behaviors? The main one is to get your ideas out of your head and onto paper. By freeing your mind of everything that needs to be done for your project, you can make sure you capture the necessary tasks, acknowledge them, and start taking action to accomplish them.
Follow Project Stages
Mr. Allen's project model involves five key stages: defining the purpose of the project, determining what success will look like, brainstorming, organizing, and allocating resources/taking action. Creating a rough outline that breaks the project down into smaller component parts, and marshaling a team of friends or advisers to pow wow about the best way to accomplish it, also can help.
It's easier to finish what you start if you delegate required tasks so that each member of your team is personally accountable for something. In my own experience, having frequent status meetings to flag problems and incorporate new developments also is important.
If you're working on your own, you can place a checklist and timeline in your personal calendar. Just be wary of implementing too many fancy organizational systems in exchange for doing real work on your project.
If you're having trouble thinking of a project to get you moving in the right direction, Mr. Allen encourages you to start with the basics.
"Your first project could be something as simple as making a career-opportunitie
Write to Alexandra Levit at reinvent@wsj.
URL: http://online.
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