Could Your Career BE Any Better?

So, no-one told you life was going to be this way?

Your jobs a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s DOA.

Pauses record

The love life stuff I can’t help you with.

The broke bit, meh, maybe.

But the jobs a joke part? Pull up a seat and sharpen your pencil

Contemplating career change is something a lot of us do, but very few of us feel like we have the tools, agency, empowerment, decision making power or sheer bravery to actually get it done.

I'm here to tell you that it is absolutely possible to change your career.

And I know that to be true because not only have I lived through immense career change personally, I've also helped a bunch of folk figure it out for themselves too.

I get a sense that just reading what I have to say about career change may not convince you entirely, so I'm rolling out the big guns - with a little help from my favourite Friends episodes.

Let’s get into it.

The One with the List (November 16, 1995)

I've conquered entire nations by starting out with making a list.

There truly can’t be enough said about the effectiveness of writing down the stuff you're thinking and feeling.

There are so many areas of career change and exploration that can be kicked off with a good old fashioned list.

Here are a few suggestions on things you could start jotting down:

• Things you like about your job and why
• Things you don't like about your job and why
• Parts of your job that align with your values
• Parts of your job that actively work against your values
• What you feel like you're missing from your job
• What your job brings to you in terms of lifestyle, joy, fulfillment
• What your job takes from you in terms of lifestyle, joy, fulfillment
• Your overall strengths and areas of opportunity

Once you've had a play around with a few of those it might be worth turning your attention to the market to start to figure out how you can use your new found gems of self-discovery to your advantage when looking for other opportunities.

For instance you might want to make a list of:

• The industries that excite you
• Jobs you've seen that have caught your eye (and why you're interested)
• People that you're connected with that could help with your exploration
• Questions you have about said industry, company, role

Give it a go!

The One Where No One's Ready (September 26, 1996)

Ah, my favourite R word.

Is anyone ever 100% ready to make a career change? Perhaps.

Can you still make a career change even if you're not 100% ready? One hundred thousand million percent yes.

In fact, when a client says something like "I'm not ready to make the move just yet" I always ask the follow up question of "what would being ready feel like?"

We then often end up in a discussion around all of the reasons as to why there's a fear of the change itself, rather than a lack of readiness.

Everyone has their own personal threshold with this, some individuals need more information than others before making the leap.

But everyone I have worked with is never 100% ready to make a change, and yet 100% of everyone I've worked with is happy that they made the change anyway.

The point is that we often confuse a lack of readiness with the presence of fear.

We think that because we're scared of doing something that must mean we're not "ready", even if we have 100 data points suggesting that we've been "ready" for over a year.

The presence of fear does not mean we're making the wrong decision.

After all your brain will always choose a comfortable hell over an uncomfortable heaven in a constant quest for familiarity and sameness.

The One Where Rachel Quits (December 12, 1996)

Perhaps you’ve sat down and done all of the thinking and list making. Maybe you quietly quit a year ago.

Or you’ve fantasized about cartwheeling into your bosses office and telling them you’re never coming back through an interpretative dance piece to Pavarotti’s Nessun Dorma.

Whatever version of quitting you’ve flirted with, it can very often feel like an insurmountable challenge.

After all, we love familiarity and we’re evolved to fear the unknown, from that perspective there’s not much working for us.

But we aren’t slaves to our caveman selves. There are things we can do to work against those natural instincts.

Self-awareness plays a huge role in being able to distinguish whether the thoughts we’re having are lead by fear or rationale.

Ultimately there’s very little chance that you’ve fabricated your desire to leave. If you were in a job you loved it wouldn’t even cross your mind.

The One with All the Haste (April 9, 1998)

You’ve probably heard the age old saying that timing is everything. Of course there’s a huge amount of truth in that.

But I also think this promotes a misconception of there being a “perfect” time to move forward.

This one kind of ties in to my point on readiness, there isn’t really a right time to try something else, but there can be a case made for there being a “wrong” time or in relation to this joyous Friends episode, being a bit too hasty.

Financial security is usually the most important element for consideration when it comes to this idea of the “wrong” time. It’s definitely not a good idea to quit your job on the spot if you don’t have a) a backup plan and/or b) the resources to support yourself for a short while.

It doesn’t have to be a complete barrier though, and with careful and intentional planning it is often possible to set yourself up for success.

I’m not a financial advisor, thankfully - I’m heinous at maths, so I’ll point you in the direction of this awesome book that’s become a bit of a bible for me in terms of financial planning - don’t let it be the thing that stops you from moving forward, it doesn’t always have to get in the way.

The One with the Giant Poking Device (November 14, 1996)

What's your Giant Poking Device? Put another way, what's the one thing in your life that would have to happen in order for you to end up making a change?

For some people it's being stressed out in a high pressure job for so many years that their nervous system gives up.

For me, it was burning out.

I was poked in a big way to make a change, and you know what that's ok.

It wasn't the end of the world, I guess you could argue that as long as change happens for the better that perhaps it matters very little how we get there.

But if you have a choice (hint: you almost always do) I encourage you to listen to early warning signs (if they're there) and make a step before you get poked.

The One Where Everybody Finds Out (February 11, 1999)

We really care what other people think of our decisions.

This is because we’re evolved to be accepted by others.

Back in the day this was the difference between being invited around the campfire to eat some buffalo or having to skulk back to our caves hungry and defeated.

Thankfully we don’t have to battle with the same situation nowadays, but we haven’t quite evolved to the point where our nervous system has figure that out.

We’re sort of stuck in this space of limbo, knowing we don’t have to worry about survival in the same way, but still feeling like we do.

Acceptance and approval from others is in our DNA and that means when we’re considering a change in our lives we take this into account - even when it’s not nearly as relevant.

“What will people think?”

“Maybe they’ll think I’m naive or ill-prepared.”

“My Mum doesn’t agree, my Dad always told me to never leave a job without another one lined up.”

“People will think I’m ungrateful.”

“My colleagues will judge me for ducking out.”

These are all thoughts I had when I thought about leaving the corporate world.

And the truth is those thoughts kept me where I was for longer than necessary.

The bottom line is, and I do mean this with the utmost amount of love, people don’t care.

They’ve got their own narratives going on, their own battles and considerations.

The people in your life that matter, that understand you and want what’s best for you will ultimately be the ones that celebrate the choices you make for the better.

And the ones that don’t? Well, those are probably the connections that you should re-evaluate.

"The One with the Flashback" (October 31, 1996)

What do you want to look back on and see?

What do you think 60 year old you will be glad of?

That’s the real consideration.

It’s one that’s bigger than just your career, of course. But given the fact most of spend a lot of our lives working it’s worth figuring out.

Will that older version of you look back and regret changing things up?

Will there be a different regret?

Perhaps a one of sitting tight and playing it safe rather than following what you knew you wanted.

Food for thought.

Love and other nice stuff,

Han

You'll spend an average of 90,000 hours at work, figure out how best to spend them.

I‘m Hannah Roan

Professional Coach and Career Mentor

I post on The Career Croissant every Friday at 9am. Stay tuned!