EP 42: How to Have Less Stress with a Job or Career Change with Sarah-Jane VandenBerg

Our guest is Sarah-Jane VandenBerg, a Career Coach on a mission to bring honesty, truth and joy to the world of careers.  She is a Certified Career Development Practitioner and a Holistic Narrative Career Professional with over 25 years of experience working with career decision makers and job seekers. She helps people move through confusion, despair and anxiety individuals have around work, and helps them feel relief and reassurance about their career plans and get the results they desire.  

She has a book, Lost & Found: An Adult’s Guide to Empowering Teens to Make Their Best Career Decisions coming out later this year.

Co-hosts Deb Timmerman and Barb Fletcher are certified HeartMath® Trainers, and certified stress educators, who are skilled at helping people discover the power of living from the heart.  

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Barb Fletcher, Sarah Jane Vandenberg, Deb Timmerman

Deb Timmerman  00:00

You're listening to the less stress in life podcast. Your hosts, Deb Timmerman and Barb Fletcher are on a mission to help individuals and organizations manage stress and change. Together, they bring you real conversations, inspirational stories, and strategies to help move you from being stressed to feeling your best.

Barb Fletcher  00:23

Hello, everyone. I'm Barb Fletcher. Welcome to our series of 52 practical tools for less stress in life. This is episode 42.

Deb Timmerman  00:34

Hi, everyone, Deb Timmerman here, our goal is to give you tools and strategies that help you move from feeling stressed, to feeling your best. And today, our guest is Sarah Jean Vandenberg. She's a career coach on a mission to bring honesty, truth and Joy to the world of careers. She's a certified Career Development Practitioner and a holistic narrative career professional. With over 25 years of experience working with career decision makers, and job seekers. She helps people move through confusion, despair and anxiety around work and helps them feel relief and reassurance about their career plans. And to get the results they desire. She has a book coming out soon called  Lost & Found: An Adult’s Guide to Empowering Teens to Make Their Best Career Decisions. So, Sarah Jane, welcome. We are so glad to be having this conversation with you today.

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  01:28

Thank you. I'm very excited to be here.

Barb Fletcher  01:30

So, Sarah Jane, can you share with us and our listeners a little bit about your path to becoming a career coach?

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  01:38

Yeah, it's kind of hilarious. It's like full circle. So, in high school, I realized that I really was intrigued about how people earn a living. And I thought, I want to be a guidance counselor. Where I live in Ontario, the only way one can become a guidance counselor is you're a teacher first. And then you become a guidance counselor. I'm not a teacher, this is something I know. So, it took me a couple of tries, frankly, to come back to that spot of connecting with people in terms of their careers. And I started connecting individuals with disabilities to specific job opportunities, and then started working with individuals who had been off work due to either an injury or an illness and helping them to return to work. And from there ended up working frontline with individuals who are unemployed and couldn't figure out what else next to do. So, when I say full circle is really because my book is, you know, for adults of teens, I'm back to the coaching of how do people make career decisions? How do we make choices? There are lots of options out there. But like most of us, we can only see the three that are in front of us, or we're all of us live, Deb and Barb and myself, we have, we see what we see. Right? So, whether it's Canada, America, rural, or urban, you see what you see, and you don't necessarily realize there's a whole lot more. 

Deb Timmerman  03:15

So, in Your work with folks with disabilities and such, how did you figure out where they could go? Or what the possibilities were for them?

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  03:25

And there's so many things that come into play? So, some of it is geography, you know, where are they what do they have access to? Some of it is course their own abilities, their own interests, and some of it, frankly, is who's funding the decision making, because that can impact significantly, I started thinking back about what's available. I'm laughing because, you know, when I started, there was no internet. So just think about that, in terms of, especially today in 2022. were lots of people and in rural Canada, in some places to this day. Of course, access to internet can be challenging. But that, you know, was a game changer, of course for career decisions. So, when you're looking at what can people do, it's all of those things.

Deb Timmerman  04:14

Well, rural Canada isn't the only one that has internet challenges, because rural barre County where I live has internet challenges as well. This morning, I had to go give a presentation. And the further I got from my little lake town. I was talking to a client, and we actually ended up not being able to have connectivity to even finish a phone call. So, I think as things have drifted more towards internet based that is a huge consideration because out here that wouldn't work for everybody.

Barb Fletcher  04:44

For me, I think about making a career choice and how stressful it was even for me 40 years ago. And I remember back the thought process I went through because my mother was a nurse and Sarah was talking about how everybody knows what's around them. So, my mother was a nurse, my grandmother was a nurse, my sister was a nurse. And I was committed to not being a nurse. So, I studied business. Now, ironically, I ended up in nursing home services after a very short bio. So, I wonder about how that path and how we get drawn to it, even if we sometimes resist it,

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  05:31

I don't know that I have the answer bar, except that sometimes we resist the obvious. We do. Because you know, it's a form of rebellion to some degree. And so, there are these assumptions that we make about career. One of them is I'm not going to follow in my parents or guardians slip step. Another one is I am going to follow in my parents or guardian, we have a lot of black and white ideas, sometimes around careers, you know, it's this or that, and the idea that it's for life. That is just so not true anymore. And yet, we are still encouraging people of all ages to make decisions for life. And the minute I tell my clients, now, we're just actually looking at the next, the next step, we might be looking at the next two, because we might have a short term and a long-term plan. They're like, really, this isn't for the rest of my life. I'm like, no. That's the next step like and the ability to be creative and excited just comes right into play, that people start to get excited then because they're not committing to something for the rest of their lives. We don't know if anything we've learned in the last little while, we don't know. You know, we don't know what the future holds. So fortunate taken our best guess.

Deb Timmerman  06:56

So, Barb shared her story about being resistant to wanting to be a nurse, I wanted to be a nurse from the time I watched Dr. Kildare. Yes, I am dating myself in I was four years old watching it on black and white TV. But what happened was, my mom told everybody, that's what I was going to be. But I missed the study skills and the math skills. So, I graduated high school, started in college, and I was so out of my element. And in my house, if you weren't 100% successful, like if you didn't get an A, and you got a C or a D, what was you, you're going to get dressed down about that. So, I actually stopped out, and then didn't go back to nursing school till I was in my 40s. I started nursing school, the year that my oldest started college, because I didn't have those skills. So, what are we looking at today for skill building, for not only kids who are coming out of high school going into college? But what if that's always been your dream? And you don't feel like you've got the skills? Can you shore them up somehow? And where do you get that help?

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  08:07

That's a very interesting question. And there's probably a lot of debate around this. So, my sense is that we are born with certain aptitudes and aptitudes can also be known as sort of natural talents. And there are some of those that yes, can be improved upon, like understanding language, often, some math skills can be developed. But there are some that people are unlikely to increase their ability in. So, things like form perception and spatial perception and people going, what are those, that doesn't mean anything to me. So, if you imagine someone who operates a backhoe, or any type of heavy equipment, anyone who's good is looking around seeing what's there. They're understanding the terrain. They know how to make the machine move, and where to place it so that it's safe and level and they can do the job that they need to do and might not even need to be level but it's safe in a way that they can actually does the job. There are those of us who do not have those skills. Sorry, I raised my hands. For those who are listening, who do not have those skills. It wouldn't matter how many times someone tried to put me in a backhoe and explain how to do these things. I'm never going to get it. I'm never going to be that person. And so, there's a piece about aptitudes and in many educational systems, unfortunately, there are some aptitudes that are really revered and other aptitudes that are not and we start this hierarchy of ideas about what is what is good or what is prestigious or what is rewarded and what is not. And so traditionally You know, things like the abilities to be a surgeon, the abilities to be a lawyer, or have been very revered. So, we're talking about language very much in the language. And with surgery, it's some thinking processes, but also forming spatial perception, interestingly enough, and hand eye coordination. Those have been revered, we haven't always revered, what I call the technical and hands on kinds of skills. So yes, there are some that can be improved, and some that not and then your second part of your question was around, where do we go to improve those? I think it really depends on, frankly, what access you have. So certainly, because we're online, there are lots of opportunities online to raise skills. There's a particular website, I use a lot GCF, learn free.org, that has lots of little courses, per se, that can help people understand things. I'm kind of dating myself by saying a particular website, because younger people today, so I'm going to say late 20s, of course, YouTube was where they learned a ton of things in libraries to this day continue to be a remarkable resource. So sometimes they'll have programs like technical programs, like how to use your iPad, and other things like that, as well as some are having sessions on using 3d printers, like all sorts of things. So, there's so many different places to go, Deb, and I really appreciate your story. But you know, 40 years old and entering again, this is one of the things that we get to change, right? We're not only a student, but we’re also not only an employee, we're not only in a retired person. There's a brilliant guy named Richard Bowles, who wrote a book in the early 80s, called the three boxes of life and how to get out of them. Those were the three boxes. And we needed to get out of the, like, look at the three of us. You know, we all participate in learning. We still are working, not necessarily as an employee, but we're working. And sometimes we're overtired, depending on the moment. But it's not it's not an exclusivity.

Barb Fletcher  12:20

The path isn't linear.

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  12:23

No, it very much isn't.

Barb Fletcher  12:25

So how do people identify them talk about where to get these services. But how do you even know that you actually need them? How do you identify that gap is? Is there testing that's available? How do people know where to begin?

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  12:43

What a great question Barb. I think they might know when to begin. It is when they're unsure. And then how to begin? Great question. Again, depending on access to resources, yes, there are lots of assessments online, that can be helpful. Sometimes there are books like, again, libraries, I'm a big proponent of libraries, you know, there'll be books in there, if you look up career resources, and books around how to identify what in you connect to the world of work, sometimes that we need assistance, you know, we can't do it on our own. One of the hilarious things about the world of careers is that we seem to think people should know, really, so I could like diagnose myself, like also with health issues, because I should know, like this just whacked, you know, we take our cars to a mechanic, we take our bodies to a doctor or chiropractor or any number of things, we take our hair to a stylist. Sometimes we take our bodies out to get different things done or to buy clothing that actually fits us. So often, we do need assistance because we need someone outside of ourselves to identify the patterns. And to perhaps shed light on what options might be out there that we didn't even know about. One of my clients I was talking to earlier today who just got a job said I don't even know where to start. I know I needed help. But I didn't know where to start. And I sure as heck didn't believe that there was anything that I could actually do. She knew she wanted to return to work, but that was it. And so, to have someone else come in and say yeah, you can actually have what you want. You can actually tell me what you want, ah, we can start speaking about what we want. And then we can connect the dots to something real and tangible

Deb Timmerman  14:43

On your website, is this beautiful graphic called the career decision making cycle. So, is that kind of the process that you take your clients through? Could you talk through what that cycle looks like and how you use it to help people move forward?

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  14:59

Sure. So, I call it a cycle because as Barb said, it's not linear. This is something we can think about, frankly, yearly. So, the first piece is assessment in assessment, it's understanding who we are. I'm a big proponent of understanding our personalities in a variety of different ways. Because those can lead to really interesting information, not necessarily about our career choice. So, you've talked about health care and nursing, but it could be an environment. So, our temperaments can, in fact, put us into and suggest environments that we might be respond really well in. So, for instance, you're talking nursing, there are certain nurses who will do really well in emergency, other nurses will do really well in research or men. Other kinds of nurses would do great in surgery, or other nurses, which would be fantastic. And pediatric surgeon geriatrics. So, it's understanding some of that information for environment. The first step is just an assessment. Who we are, why are we working? Let's help we start with why. I love Simon Sinek. Start with why. Why are we working? There are all sorts of different reasons to work and we don't need to be judgmental about them. Just need to understand them, because they will inform our decisions later on. You know, what skills do we bring? What our interests, what our abilities, what our values is big one these days, and then we look at research. So what do those things when you pull them together? What suggestions are there, I think it's very rare that a person would own a able to do some one particular job. Usually they there's lots of options, we named things differently. And some people combine different kinds of jobs that you may think at first, don't look anything alike. But we do that. People do though. So, it's not just sort of a tunnel vision, once we're looking at what the options are finding it really useful information about them. So what's required in terms of education? You don't you were saying you needed some skills before you went back to college, understanding the labor market? Are there actually jobs in the place that you want to work and occupational information? So is that how that world of work is? Does it work for you one of the clients I worked with, she'd used to be in graphic design, and she'd left it because it was so crunch time, in terms of you had to get this done in this amount of time. And her creative juices didn't necessarily flow that quickly for that particular environment. And then of course, making a decision, which avenues am I going to follow? Low Priority, the options prioritized in the current criteria, murky decision, and sometimes things drop into our lap that we're like, Hmm, I wonder what that would be like, we've never even thought of it. And we might move down that plan. And sometimes it isn't one thing. It's a couple of things. So of course, the last step is taking action. What action am I going to take? Am I going to sign up for a course? Am I going to apply for some jobs? And am I going to interview some people to see what those jobs are? And then I think we begin again, because we get in a position. And we do that for a little while. And we know, especially in young people these days, they're stand like maybe a year and a half to two and a half years somewhere. And they're like assessing what's next? What's next. They're eager for what's next, what's new. How do I learn? How do I grow? So we do this? That's why I call it a cycle. We do it repeatedly. And we will.

Deb Timmerman  18:41

So I'm curious with a pandemic, how has How has your client changed? Are those folks that still want to work for a corporation or more people exploring other things out there like being an entrepreneur or starting their own business? What's that been? Like?

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  19:01

I think it varies. There seems to be some conflicting information. So some people say everyone's resigning, some people are saying they're reinventing. Some people are saying they're retiring. I think there's a mixture of all of it with my clients. What is really important is they want to articulate their values, but they don't know how they want to be honest and clear about what they want. And they don't know how and I think from an employer's perspective, I don't know that the pandemic but certainly the the labor shortage is forcing employers to think more about how do we actually attract employees and how do we then keep them so I keep encouraging my clients that tell me what you want, like let's create this beautiful, wonderful, detailed image of the job that you want. Because some of these things you might be negotiating with an employee You're about, you know, in some communities, they're looking for some skilled people. And if they can only take you part time or for these hours, they might take that because that might be better than nothing.

Deb Timmerman  20:11

I had a conversation with my daughter today, just an exchange about, hey, something came in the mail, and I'm going to get it to you. And I started hang up, she said, Wait, I got a new job. So she is going to work for a different company she interviewed like at noon on Monday, and they called her later that day to say, we're not quite ready for you. But we want to offer you the job, so you don't take something else. That's how fast people are gobbling up people with skills, and with passion and work ethic. And it was just so sweet to hear that excitement in her voice. Because really what she will move to it, she's working all kinds of crazy hours and his family. And there's this disconnect with her personal values, with her family, and with her job. So she got that, hopefully it will pan out and be very much like what she wants it to be. But she said she was just blown away by how fast that happened. So I think you're speaking to that shortage, and what value they're placing on skills and people.

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  21:16

And I love that you were saying that the why she's working and things that in her life, because we will change you know that for those of us who have families, there is a period of time where there are certain hours that work better for us and certain structures within them in job opportunities that work better for us. And then of course, as children hopefully mature, and hopefully leave home or at least get employed, we might change in terms of what we want from our work and what we want to give to our work and how that looks. So that why piece is so important.

Barb Fletcher  21:51

Sarah Jane, what the stress look like for somebody who's showing and up can't make a career decision. What's that look like?

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  21:59

Everyone is so different. It kind of looks different. For most people, I shouldn't say most people, it looks different in the sense that sometimes people it impacts them emotionally. Sometimes it impacts them intellectually, sometimes it packs them physically. Sometimes it impacts them spiritually. And so I don't always know at first how it's impacting them. It takes a little bit sometimes to uncovers some of those things, I was talking to one client, and he had said to me, he was dreading our first conversation. And I'm like, reading, I tell me more about that. And there are others who are, they're not dreading. Sometimes they don't have hope. Sometimes they're anxious, sometimes they're desperate, the money that's coming in right now is going to have a hard stop at a certain date. I had one client who was like that she's like, I got three weeks, man. And that's it. And she was quite petrified because she knew she couldn't go back to what she used to do. She just knew that. But she couldn't see another option. And there's a process that I use, I didn't develop that Steve Dalton develop this process. He calls it the two hour job search. It takes longer than two hours, but essentially takes two hours to create a list of potential employers. And so I just said to her, there's a process that I can do with you. And you know, if you want to do it, then within three weeks, you can likely I've had a couple of interviews with some potential employers and got some ideas and she was like, No, that's not actually possible. And I said, Okay, so if you want to hang on to that, you can hang I'm going to encourage you hang on to that. Would you be willing to consider the possibility that there might be an alternative? Okay. You know, she's hesitant? Of course, she has. She has a brain, she says it. So I'm like, so would you be willing to learn a little bit about this idea? Yes. And so I think that's the thing. People are hesitant. They're scared, sometimes they're excited because they're like, oh, oh, goodbye to that place. And I'm like, so ready for something new. So, it really depends. And yes, that woman did get a job offer within three weeks, that was actually $20,000 more money per year than she was making before. That doesn't happen in every case. But

Barb Fletcher  24:23

I love that you are able to adapt the process to fit the client.

Deb Timmerman  24:29

Sarah Jane, what percentage of your clients are those people that get cut or severed or find themselves without a job or those people who take the proactive approach? They know it's time to move to something else, and they do the work before they get the axe so that it's not like this final thing that they have to hurry up and figure out because the money's going to stop.

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  24:54

I don't have the stats on that. What I can tell you is that I have an assessment and a blog on my website and a blog that talks about a new job or new employer, do you really need to switch tracks? Or do you simply need a new environment? And so for people who just do that assessment, they might get that answer debt without ever having worked with me. And then they have a clearer picture of what they need. And they go and get them. My sense is that more people are questioning what they're doing and why they're doing it.

Deb Timmerman  25:26

So from the causing stress perspective, it's so much easier if we can plan and negotiate that exit, than if we get the axe and have a severance package in the last three weeks or our paychecks going to run out?

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  25:39

Yes. And I would say though, from a stress perspective, people are stressed if they have a job, and people are stressed if they don't have a job. So, managing stress is just a requirement of life. And I shouldn't say just because you ladies know, it's not a one-time thing. I now take my card for service, like regularly. And I'm hoping maybe what we know about human beings is that we need maintenance ourselves. Yeah, sometimes we need a tune up, which is a little more intense, but maintenance, you had asked me earlier about the skills that kids need today to be successful. And the basics are emotional intelligence, financial understanding, and I would say an emotional intelligence. Part of that is the ability to manage stress, or the ability to know where to go to get the resources. I talk a lot to my clients about maintenance, and what do they need to stay healthy at work? So when they return? What do they need to stay healthy? This is like your jam, isn't it?

Deb Timmerman  26:48

Yeah, we'll have to talk about a collaboration for this. Because in my personal experience, and Barb, I think you can agree to this too. If you're going from one employer to another, and you don't deal with the internal stress or become emotionally intelligent, you just bring that baggage to the next employer. And it shows up sooner or later. I know, because I did that. Every two years, I cycled out and went to that new place that was going to be shinier, and better. And it wasn't them that needed to change. It wasn't me that needed to change. And that's a key concept with all of this. If you don't have that, you're probably not going to find happiness in that next spot.

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  27:34

What an interesting, and like, key observation and comment, Deb. Your relationship with work is like every relationship.

Barb Fletcher  27:43

Yeah, what I see happening is that when people aren't resilient, when they aren't able to self regulate, they lose confidence. And confidence is absolutely imperative to stepping forward. And so I think that the work that you do, and the reason I asked the question about stress is because I know that it's an extremely stressful time. And I think we're likely to see more and more of that, as people stay in places a shorter period of time. And so having those skills to be able to maintain your confidence, maintain your resilience, that emotional self regulation are going to be really, really important.

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  28:30

I think one of the funniest things I asked my clients is, what are you doing for fun? And the question is funny, the responses are always hilarious, because they're like, What the hell does that have to do with work? Like, no, no, seriously, it's super important. And then I explained all the reasons why having fun is super important. And how you end up being so much more attractive to an employer, when you're having fun because it changes so many things about who you are. And what of my clients. I want center. Here's your job search homework, I need you to return to the activity that you used to love to do when I meet with you next. I want to know what you did. I didn't ask her to apply to jobs. I didn't ask her to make a resume. I didn't ask her to do any. Like ask her to go out foot but she was just like you are the most wacked person I think I've ever talked to about this whole job search thing. But okay. And of course, when she came back the next time I saw her everything had changed. And now we can go into talking about all the other things because she's now in a place you were talking about our confidence. She's coming from a completely different place now.

Deb Timmerman  29:47

So Barb, what's our call to action this week? We could talk to Sarah Jean for hours, I think, about this topic.

Barb Fletcher  29:54

Yeah, I think so. If you are anticipating moving Archie inching directions, it might be good to explore some of the resources that are in your own community to help you better understand what that fit might look like. And don't be afraid to reach out to people like Sarah Jane, because they will, in fact, support your confidence and they'll who get moving forward.

Deb Timmerman  30:20

Sarah Jane, where do folks connect with you?

Sarah Jane VandenBerg  30:24

They can connect with me at hello@careergrowthco.com. Or just even like going on to the website careergrowthco.com. There are some resources there as well, you've got a page of resources, that there are lots of things there that are free as well. And there are some complimentary resources as well to sign up.

Deb Timmerman  30:47

So we will put those connection points to Sarah Jane in our show notes. And if stress is the underlying issue, reach out to Barbara we'd love to have a conversation about how that could look different for you. So when you take the job to your next job, you're there for the duration, not for a short period of time coming back feeling. Yeah, not so good. Anyway, until next time, thanks for joining us today. Less stress in life is possible. If you're new to this kind of thinking and would like to explore what's possible for you. We'd love to connect. You can reach us through our website at less stress in life.com. That's less stress in life.com.