Change ingrained habits

"Sally" is very unhappy in her current job. She has little autonomy and lots of people looking over her shoulder, eager to criticize what she's doing and how she's doing it. The last straw was getting a reprimand for not appearing "concerned about getting things done" despite the fact that she always gets everything done. So Sally wants to leave and get a job where she has more independence and is more valued.

Right now, Sally doesn’t know exactly what she wants to do. She has some ideas but is still pretty vague about what she might investigate. Thus, she needs to gather more information. For instance, she needs to look at different jobs and industries to get more familiar with what is possible and what kinds of jobs are out there. In addition, Sally is in the habit of deferring to other people's wishes for her and has little experience pursuing her own dreams and wishes.

I came up with an assignment to help Sally begin to get more specific about things instead of vague, and to identify some things she can actually do something about NOW - thus beginning to act on her own behalf. The assignment is to:

Get very specific about all the things she is tolerating in her life - the things, people, situations she allows in her life that bug her, that are not optimal for her happiness and fulfillment.

We'll see what she comes up with, and how willing she is to do something different in order to get different results.

*name changed