Career change: About fear, opportunity and action.
What are your goals in life?
Just want to have a comfy living without huge shifts? Or are you looking for a bigger purpose? You want to save the world but you’re not on track yet?
There are various reasion to change your career. It ranges from better payment and work-life-balance, new challenges or a lack of passion for the current job role.
Don’t get it wrong. It is totally fine to have a stable life without major changes. If this is what makes you happy, fine! Don’t chase shiny objects if it does not correspond to your character and goals in life. Be yourself.
That is what a career change should be about: You. 100 percent. You are spending one-third of your life working. Make it a pleasant and fulfilling part of your life.
Surveys show, that more than two third of the people are happier, more satisified and fulfilled and less stressed after their career change.
So why do we still fear it so much? Why do we have excuses some people consider to be “lame”.
What is scary about (career) change?
Sometimes you are leaving a safe place within a company. Sometimes you are making a decent income but are unhappy. Sometimes you don’t want to admit that you maybe made a wrong decision earlier in your life and you already invested so much time and effort in your career (check out “sunk cost fallacy”). Sometimes it means going back to “school” in one or another way, including the lack of income.
That is scary for many people, especially when they do have responsibilities (kids, partners) or liabilities (loans, mortgages).
One side note: Try to have as few liabilities as possible. It is narrowing down your choices in life. Once you are haunted by monthly interest rates, you are not free to do whatever you want. Worst case: You are trapped in a job you hate.
That sounds way scarier than changing your career! Sometimes, the worst case scenario is our current situation.
By the way: Let’s talk about fear for a second.
Fear is an emotion induced by perceived danger or threat. Fear can have a real cause — or one we imagine. Beside, fear is an emotion shaped both by nature (innate fear) and by social relations and culture (learned fear).
Living in a quite stable world, we usually fear bigger changes in our lifes. We are making assumptions and projections about the future and that change could lead us to a worse outcome.
Losses loom larger than gains. This phenomenon is called “loss aversion” and it is a strong behavioral concept. It is thought that the pain of losing is psychologically about twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining.
Beside, parents, partners or friends could judge you (“I told you so!”). That status anxiety is holding us back, too. Sometimes for the better. Often for the worse. Don’t fear the judgement.
Don’t let someone else’s opinion of you become your reality.
(Les Brown)
In today’s world, more and more experts are emphasizing the fact, that sticking to the status quo is actually the greater threat to many people. But usually, this risk is more abstract and therefore less threatening.
Not being able to pay the next rent is more concrete than the imagination (and motivation) of having a better life in 5 years.
You need energy to move a static object (unless you let it fall). Pure physics. Changing the status quo needs energy.
You have to figure out a way to find and use the necessary energy to take action. Otherwise, fear is paralyzing you. It makes you incapable of seizing the life you really want — even if it is right in front of you.
Take action.
There is a truckload of literature about taking action. Motivational gurus like Tony Robbins are making a fortune by selling simple truths. Wanna try one?
If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.
(Tony Robbins)
Wow! Do you feel better after reading this? Damn it, I do. Does it change my life? Not unless I take action.
No question, this topic is way too big to cover it here. I leave it to the experts. But just one thought:
It is up to you to take action. Don’t wait for someone to give you the permission to do so. I know, this is easier said than done.
Let’s try one approach.
Make a plan: How do you eat an elephant?
A career change can be a huge step for you. If you always wanted to achieve something big, you know that getting started can be a challenge. Maybe you have a vague idea of what you want, but no idea of how to get there.
Or maybe you sit down to think about everything you have to do and the sheer amount of tasks makes you feel incapable of taking the first step.
A goal without a plan is just a wish.
(author unclear, but attributed to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
Big goals can be overwhelming and intimidating. This is a common experience, and it is the reason why so many people are not able to turn their dreams into reality.
We try to eat the whole elephant with a single bite. But how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Divide your goals into actionable steps. Ever heared of the acronym SMART? It is well-known in the world of project managers and guides you through the setting of objectives and goals. Accordingly, a good objective is
S pecific (Is it precise?)
M easurable (Can you count and compare it?)
A ttainable (Are you able to do it?)
R elevant (Does it mean something important to you?)
T ime-bond (When do you want to achieve it?)
Start getting SMART!
What would be the next steps?
Do a self-reflection
Why don’t you like your current job? Is it the job itself or maybe just the company or the co-workers that makes you unhappy?
How does your ideal career would look like? How does it feel imagining you in your current and in your potential new job? Do you get excited or discouraged?
Talk to people
There are so many questions in your head. Let them out. Talk with friends about it. Ideally with someone who has a job you are aspiring to get. Still pumped about it after the conversations? Then keep on moving. But always have in mind: the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Don’t get distracted by romance.
Try it out
The best way to get a feeling for something new is actually doing it. Do an internship. Shadow someone at the workplace, maybe a friend. Do side projects.
I hear you saying “But I don’t have the skills”. Here is a secret: No one does until he starts doing and learning something. But hiding behind books or spending time watching one tutorial after another does not give you a feeling about how this new job acutally looks like.
Usually, the fear of making a mistake is holding us back. No one wants to waste time on something that turns out to be worse than the status quo.
Get a feeling as soon as possible!
“I don’t want to start over again”
The good news: You don’t have to. You are not really starting over. If you have studied and worked for years or even decades, think about the technical and interpersonal skills that you have learned.
We never really have to start over. The only thing we’d really have to do is learn a new skill on top of the many skills you’ve already acquired over the years.
The even better news: People with a tool belt full of different skills are in high demand.
So what are you waiting for?
Epilogue: WBS CODING SCHOOL offers a course to turn people into junior web developers within 15 weeks. Many students use the opportunity of a “coding bootcamp” to change their careers. No one is regretting it.
