|
|
|
 |
|
I put up - for years - doing an average paid clerical job in order to pay the mortgage and even though I was not entirely happy emotionally doing what I did, I just carried on out of fear that I won't get something else that would put food on the table and a roof over my and my child's head ... that was until I injuried myself and lost my job as a result of the injury and that made me think twice before applying for the next one.
And if you are reading this, no doubt you have questions about what you are doing at present. The only way I can describe what I felt was a feeling almost the same as "the biological clock ticking" feeling. Every moment of the day I realised that I cannot keep doing what I am and that I must change my job into some I really enjoy doing...and perhaps that is a description of a mid-life crisis. All I know is that my mind was telling me that if I carry on doing what I am doing, my spiritual and emotional life would not be fully satisfied and that when I am old one day, I will question myself about how I spent my days each week.
The above might sound pessimistic to someone who has a fulfilled and content career, but if you are unhappy or question what you are doing each working day, you are perhaps better off to make a change of some sort.
In my search for light at the end of my JOB tunnel I have come across some very hand tips and for anyone going through the same experience of the fear of the unknown of where to start, hopefully this may give some insight.
If you search the web there are endless companies and agencies displaing various types of information and/or services such as hiring a career or lifestyle coach to motivate you and perhaps for some people that is the right approach. I have no alliance with any such services, but if you search on Google no doubt you'll be able to make contact with such people.
Over the year and a half that I started experiencing conflicting feelings about my job and started doing some research about how to go about a career change, I have realised that there are only a hanfdul of important stages that most people go through in order to make a successful career change.
It is clearly one of the most important decisions you will make and can be very overwhelming because of the unknown knowledge of what lies ahead of you. It is very difficult to know where and how to start. For this reason alone a lot of us become almost reluctant to change and a lot of us trying to find excuses not to change, hence sabotaging our own dreams of a new future. I recognise that each person's career change is an individual, unique and different experience but before making the change everyone should do the next three things as without doing these, you may just question your decision later on.
Nobody likes being stuck, yet even though we want something new and different sometimes we just cannot let go of our old habits and experiences and even thoughts. The reasoning behind this is that even though we know that it is not to our benefit, we are reluctant to change it because what we have is familiar to us. People fear the unknown and even though there is the possibility that a change could improve our lives, we fear the unknown and for some reason, most people prefer to stick to the known.
Sometimes it takes years before we even realise that we are stuck, but once you have realised that you are stuck, your mind will make you "question" your life and keep "telling" you that you need to make a change. And for true happiness and contentment you ought to start listening to your inner voice telling you to change something or else you will go around in circles year after year.
|
 |
Inspirational Quote by Confucius - "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life"
This is an essential step. You are the only person who knows yourself best. Before you even start to think about what career you want to change to, you have to find out what activities brings out the best in you. Which areas of your life do you feel you thrive in and what brings out your strengths. And most of all what subjects do you love. You almost want to forget about jobs and careers for a moment - think back to what you loved doing as a child and a teenager and what you dreamed about doing when you are grown up.
Tip: Keep a little notebook with you and do this over a period of a few weeks. Jot down things you remember that made you happy as a child or try to remember when was the last time you had a very fulfilling day. Also question yourself as to why you thought it was not only enjoyable but fulfilling. Write down all your ideas and memories. The important thing to note about this stage, though, it is important not to procrastinate and dream forever. Give yourself some time to think about this but don't make this an indefinite time period, otherwise you might convince yourself at the end of the day that you can always change later on in your life, almost like saying "oh, I'll stop smoking next Monday " or I'll stop eating junk food after my birthday". Be strict with yourself so that you do not waste your own time.
|
 |
Once you have a better idea as to what you as a person is all about, it is time to start to find out about the different careers that suit you best and what will make YOU as an individual sparkle.
Quick Job Search
|
 |
Only now are you ready to make the change. Once you have a definite and clear idea of what career it is you want to change into, you can start to work out how you are going to make the change. Like most things in life ... if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So it is vital to create a plan of action and then to stick to it.
|
 |
Take a moment to realise for yourself what the consequences would be IF YOU DO NOT make a career change. Also think about possibilities IF YOU DO make that change. Write both consequences down.
It is important to know why you are making the change and what could be the consequences if you do not make the change. The reason for this is that if you change your career, and you carry on living your life, sometimes life can get in the way and you may encounter certain obstacles in your life. If you are committed to your career change and you come across such challenges and obstacles you ought to have a clear perspective about the change and stay committed.
If you say that you are too busy to make the change, take a step back and make small changes. Dedicate one weekend day or even a few hours on your day off and dedicate that to work on your career change.
The alternative - is to stay in the same job that you do not enjoy and keep doing it for the next 20 or 30 years.
It is essential that you are clear on the benefits if you DO change, but also the consequences if you DO NOT change. Once you are clear on this, you are ready to get committed.
|
 |
In order to turn your dream career into reality you have to:
- Explore some ideas
- Will this new career suit me?
- Test drive your new career choice
1. Explore some ideas
Go back to the notes you made when you were "getting to know yourself" right at the start. Find out what duties and interests are required for a specific career and pay attention to the ones that have similar duties and interests such as what you discovered you are interested in. Some ideas might be:
working with animals, children or old people
writing
using your voice
nvolved in helping the community as a whole
making people aware of health risks such as say smoking and obesity
you may wish to work outdoors
do you want to work for yourself?
do you want to educate people
do you want to help people in need i.e. medical, social, psychological, learning needs
Make a list of all the careers you can think of that involve your interests & what type of duties you would like to perform in your new career.
If you feel that you just cannot get any ideas, why not have a brainstorming session with a friend or indeed look on the internet. Just search for some of your interests and preferred duties + career and see what you can come up with. Think of it as an adventure and try to enjoy it. Try not to get stressed or negative, because negativity can stifle your ideas and creativity.
2. Will this new career suit me?
Once you have a few ideas on your list of possibilities that you feel keen and enthusiastic about, you will have to figure out which of these possible careers will suit you best. A good idea is to find a person in your area with such a career and try to speak to them. When I was going through my searches of possibilites I found that every person I telephoned had the time to talk to my about their career. For instance I sustained a Repetative Strain Injury through opening heavy doors over a period of time, but my interests were all related to the health and alternative health industry particularly reflexology and aromatherapy. I then telephoned people in my area with such careers and not only asked them positive questions about their jobs, but also negative questions. For instance, I asked questions such as "in view of their experience, what could be a possible impact of practicing as a reflexologist with a recovering injury such as an RSI injury".
3. Test drive your new career choice
Test driving your new career is really the best and only way to find out if your new choice of career would really suit you. A good way to do it is to get some work experience by doing some volunteering. It is quite different to just read about a job or career than to do it for real. By actually doing it for a few days you can get a view point from various people in the workplace as well. If you have the opportunity to do this, go for it.
|
 |
If you are passionate to go into a certain industry, but you will need to be trained into it, why not? Even if you just want to learn any new skill it is a good opportunity to spark your creativity and to see where that leads you. There are endless flexible short courses now where almost anyone can study from home at their own pace. The list is endless and to name but a few there are for example, Creative Writing, Homeopathy, Herbalism, Aromatherapy, Sports Psychology, Web Design, Yoga, Jewellery Design, Landscape Gardening -almost anything you can think off. For some courses you may have to attend a practical session of a few days, but education is within reach of almost all of us these days.
Which course or new skill would you like to learn? This could be the first step you need to take to get you into your new dream career.
If I am unsure about what my new career will be, what is the point to learn a new skill or do a course? A new course or skill may well open your mind to new ideas or give you fresh inspiration. Perhaps it may rekindle a passion you had earlier on in your life, but at the very least, if can open your mind to a more positive outlook, especially for someone who has been unemployed for some time and who has become negative about their situation.
Learning a new skill takes you out of your daily thinking pattern. If you do the same today as you did yesterday, you will experience the same thing, hence no change. Therfore it is sometimes essential to break your daily habits and patterns and to give yourself a different opportunity where you can experience something different and new. Learning a new skill will therefore give you new things to do each day, you may well behave differently and this may all give you different ideas.
If you feel curious about a specific subject why not take an introductory course to find out more about it. If you do the course at your local college in the evening or weekend you may even make more friends as you will be sharing a class wiith people with the same interests as you.
|
 |
It is a good idea to speak to people who have changed careers to find out how they did it, but it is quite unlikely that you will have the opportunity to do so. Most people don't necessarily advertise the fact that they had changed careers and unless you are a career coach or recruitment agent, you may not come across such candidates.
There are two types of people who make a career change - some may HAVE TO make a choice, usually because of a physical injury and another group of people may wish to plan to make that change. The ones that HAVE TO make the career change usually do not have as much (long-term planning) options to make the change.
People that have time to plan for this change usually do it in one of the following ways. In order to retrain they may scale down in their hours from a 5-day week to a 4-day week or work flexible hours to compress their 5 day working week into 4 days. A lot of employers are quite flexible these days. Other people make scale down even more and take on a part-time position, take a sabbatical or do freelance work.
If you are serious about retraining, you will have to plan to make time during your week to allow time for studying. One thing I have realised over the years is that "One will never 'find' time for anything. If one wants time, one must make it."
If you are still unsure about which career to change to, concentrate on your interests and consider what short courses may provide you with new inspiration or give you fresh ideas.
|
 |
If you have been doing the above for a few weeks now, you will probably have noticed that although there were positive stages when you were feeling positive and energetic about the career change you may have also experienced negative feelings of frustration, despair and even depression or a feeling of "being lost and alone".
It is only human to feel like this and be assured that even the most positive and inspirational people get their low moments too. You are not alone in this. It is extremely challenging and stressful to change career, especially if you have financial worries and perhaps looking for a career change because of an injury. You may at some point think that you had enough and that you would rather go back to your old ways. If you have reached this point of return, you MUST ask yourself what is it that is stopping you from pushing ahead and then deal with that issue first before you can go ahead again.
FEAR is usually the biggest stumble block. How do I overcome FEAR? FEAR is an instinct that stops and warns us when we get too close to something that might injure us such as walking across a road of busy cars, or perhaps going too fast in a car, or getting too close to the edge of a cliff. Saying that, FEAR also comes to play when we are faced with change and head for the unknown, which is exactly what we are doing when we try to change to a new career.
If you get these feelings of FEAR you must try to find out where these feelings of anxiety and panic or uncomfortable feelings come from.
1. Try to let your intuition "hear" what the FEAR is trying to tell you
Don't try to ignore the feelings of despair. Let it happen and try to "hear" what your intuition is trying to tell you. FEAR most commonly happen because of "not knowing what will happen". It is the "unknown". If you have put together a good plan, go back to your plan and look at it again. If there are any blanks in your plan fill them in and then ask yourself if there is anything else you can do to comfort yourself which will effectively remove the FEAR. Perhaps it is as simple as speaking to someone in the new career industry or perhaps you just need to practice your newly learned skill a bit more until you feel more efficient at it or perhaps you need to getter better or further training.
2. Experience the FEAR and then go ahead with your Plan
If you cannot find any basis for your FEAR. Have a relaxation or meditation session and "feel" the FEAR when you do this and if you still cannot find any basis for it, take a deep breath and keep moving and thinking ahead.
FEAR will pop up from time to time whenever you get out of your comfort zone. But each time when you feel unsure of what lies ahead, go back to your plan and your reason for the career change & look at your consequences again if you DO NOT go ahead with the change. This will reassure you that you are doing the right thing.
Accept the FEAR as a part of the process because FEAR is a part of our lives. Allow it to be there but get on what what you planned.
I wish you all the best of success in your new career.
Quick Job Search
|
|
|
|
|
|
