You Just Have to Do It: The most difficult part of making a career change is starting it, especially with only your desire to propel you.

From the Wall Street Journal | Feb 14, 2010 | 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.

Courtesy Alexandra Levit

Alexandra Levit

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-opportunities folder, in which you put interesting articles you
cut out of magazines or read online," he says. "It could be setting up
a time each week to reflect on the bigger picture of your life. It's
not a bad thing to hold off on the biggest decisions until your
thinking has matured."

Write to Alexandra Levit at reinvent@wsj.com