5 Essential Tips for Career Change
A friend once told me, when I was moaning about the daily grind of an office-based Monday-Friday job, “Quit whining and knuckle down, we all have to do it, like it or not”.
Well, a few years on, and he’s now eaten his words. I changed career from a finance based office job, grinding through the daily commute, Sunday blues, spreadsheets and the drudgery of the coffee-machine chat, to a career as a Commercial Pilot. You can do it too.
5 nuggets of advice hold true for anyone looking to change career, from and to whatever it may be. If your job isn’t working for YOU, do something about it now.
1) Find a Passion
This is the easiest way to change career, if you’re lucky enough to have a passion for something where a job already exists. For example, “I’ve always wanted to make costumes for movies” is simple. All you need to do is find a course and dedicate yourself to learning that particular skill.
If your passion is lawn bowls, then granted it’s a little more difficult to make a living from it. However, passions can be varied and so can a career. How about finding a career that lets you have TIME to play bowls every day. Not only that, what about developing a new weighted streamline ball that could be used to enhance the game? One with an imbedded camera perhaps? Now we’re talking; you’re already getting excited aren’t you.
2) Have Confidence to Pursue your Dreams
Let me say this only once: ANYONE can do ANYTHING they like. There will always be barriers and difficulties to overcome, but it wouldn’t be worth it without them. If you want something badly enough, find a way to get it. If you want to learn a new skill and therefore need to go back to school, which costs time, figure out how to earn extra money. Do you need all those hours in the evenings or at weekends, or could you get another job to earn some cash? It may take time, but I promise you it’ll be worth it.
You may be laughed at by others when you say “I’m going to follow my dream career of cliff diving”. But, there are people that do it – why shouldn’t it be you?
3) Dedicate Yourself to Make the Change Happen
99% of things in life simply require dedication. Have you ever heard of a sportsperson who didn’t say “I grew up wanting to be the best basketball player or linebacker or footballer I could be”? They’re the lucky ones: from an early age they identified what it was they wanted to do, and they worked hard to achieve it.
Once you find what you want, you need to go full bore at getting yourself there. Focus on the ‘hows’ – ‘how’ can I change my life from today. The answers may be talking to a teacher who once tried to push you in that direction; or researching companies or experts already in the area you want to get into; or taking that photography course you always promised yourself you were going to do…one day.
Take practical steps TODAY towards setting yourself up for that career change.
4) If You’re Not Happy now, Make ANY Change
I wasn’t one of the lucky ones I mentioned in Tip 1. Most pilots grow up knowing that’s what they want to do. Not me.
I knew I didn’t want to work in Finance, and that it wasn’t the career for me. I spent a number of New Years Eves saying “I will not be in this career come the next New Year”. But I didn’t know what it was I wanted to do.
The way to overcome this and to find your way is to make a step, any step.
I was interested in the Military and had been for a number of years. So I spent a year applying, and successfully gaining a place to train as an Army Officer. I never started the course. Having left my job to join the Army I was fortunate enough to spend a few hours flying a small plane. I loved it. The more I looked into it, the more I realised how much I loved the feeling of flying, but also how the career as a Commercial Pilot would suit me perfectly. It offered everything that was missing from my Finance job: travel, variable working hours, a daily challenge, physical as well as mental skills.
If you’re not sure what career you want to do, but know that you DON’T want to do what you’re doing now, make a change. Today. Take that job as a hat maker; go see your friend in Australia; go travelling for 6 months.
As soon as you step away from your daily routine, you see clarity and simplicity that wouldn’t be possible through the fog of your current life. It may just lead you in a completely different direction to anything you could have imagined before.
5) Be Patient
Change often takes time. I don’t think I’ve met anyone who has been lucky enough to change careers overnight. My path took a total of 3 to 4 years, from conception to doing the daily job. It was hard, but so worth it.
Other people build up a separate business in their spare time, until it’s profitable enough to turn it into a full-time job. Some people do evening or weekend classes to add a skill they previously didn’t have, that is useful for stepping into that new career.
Give it time, be patient, continue to dedicate yourself to the change, and it will happen
To summarise all the advice, if you’re not happy DO SOMETHING, anything, about it. It will be hard perhaps, but it will always be so worth it.
One way I like looking at things is this: Take a step back and imagine yourself as a 90yr-old you. You’re telling your grandkids about your life. Imagine what it is you’d like to be telling them, then make it happen. Now.
