Much is written about reinvention and reinventing yourself to re-invigorate or even reignite your career. Well, the advice is often simple but implementing it is not always easy! In many cases a complete reinvention takes three years to develop full traction in the new career. In my own case I have completely changed five careers and I have witnessed the three-years of blood, sweat, and tears before knowing if the change was going to work for me! Often, people cannot wait that long before discovering that the new career is NOT for them!

A simpler–and easier–way to reinvent is to reinvent your career or your job! What does mean? It simply means that you redefine what you do on a day-to-day basis to reenergize your work. It is much easier than your reinventing yourself and it takes much less time. In this economic downturn making a preemptive move to redefine what you do may, in fact, be a smarter way to keeping your current job! If you agree, here are the guidelines:

1. Do a careful audit of what you do and what needs really doing. Often, people keep doing what they did before to continue their activities and pretty soon they become part of the scene! If you look at how you create value in what you do and extract those parts that provide value to the next link in the value chain, then you have identified the pith of your work. Doing this with priority can often energize your work. Find meaning behind what you do!
2. Approach your boss and discuss the different aspects of your work. Then develop an understanding that you would change your priorities to accommodate the high-value work and slowly wean from “busy work.” If your boss agrees with your assessment you are on to the next step of actually getting assigned to that work!
3. In these tough economic times those who are not doing high-value added work are going to be the first to be shown the door. If you are ensconced in the right work mix, then it is less likely that you would be on the layoff list.
4. Surround yourself with those who exhibit positive attitude and energy. At any place of work there are always the whiners. In tough economic times these whiners (Debbie-the-downers!) often congregate and are the source of vicious rumors that spread quickly through their own network. Stay away from such naysayer and surround yourself with those with a healthy outlook.
5. Volunteer for jobs that are not getting done but those which are essential to the company’s success. These jobs are often customer-centric activities that do not get measured in many departments because their job is to make the widgets regardless of what the customer really wants. By taking on such important jobs you have made your company more market worthy and customer-centric.
6. Take credit for your work by sending memos and acknowledging others who helped you achieve success. Send these emails to the higher-ups so that others know your contributions. Do not just assume that because you volunteered and did some thankless job that you’ll be given credit. You must claim it!
7. Look for work that is similar to what you do in departments that are closer to the customer. For example, if you are a Failure Analysis technician, taking in the reports of failed parts from the customer, see if you can work in the customer support department that talks to the customer to solve their problems on an ongoing basis. Even in tough time customers are not going to disappear and a company cannot afford to ignore customer-facing needs.
8. Make yourself visible by attending company events and where customer-facing events are held. Once you are seen by the executives as someone who is doing a customer-facing job, you are not likely to be “surplused.”
9. Come up new ways of doing your job and share that knowledge with others to get them to support you. Once you develop a coterie of followers you’ll be seen as a thought leader and are less likely to be “surplused.”
10. Act and look powerful. If you keep positive attitude others will assume that you are doing something important. This is called the law of attraction and it works well. Keep smiling, even when you do not know what you are doing!

Re-energizing your job in tough times is not that difficult. You just need to adjust your attitude to transform your perspective about your job and it is quite easy to do as you just saw. Now, go and do it!