You Want to Change Jobs, but…
“I’ll give it 6 months”, you say. In the meantime, there’s a piece of good news, or a minor win, or worse still, a big win. Or, the boss leaves and you decide to give it another 6 months. There’s always a reason not to face the fact that your work is no longer working for you. I hear you thinking, “Change jobs? Are you mad?” I know. The feeling can be about as appealing as a poke in the bottom with a hot poker, especially when you are mid career, possibly have more responsibilities at home than you’ve ever had and you feel you are at an age when most people are reaching their peak.
The challenge is that a year or two (or ten in my case) has gone by and you realise it’s much harder now than it would have been back then:
►You are a few years older (obvious I know, but it does come with its own specific challenges)
►You’ve carved out a comfort zone making it even harder to extract yourself because you’ve literally created a ‘you shaped’ dent in the furniture. In other words, you are so intrinsic to the organisation that they wouldn’t know what to do without you
►Your skills have unchanged in a fast moving world
►You’ve become institutionalised
►Your confidence has hit an all-time low
Is There any Good News?!
The good news is that there is always a choice
You can stay put. It has its merits as you’ve discovered:
►You get to stay in your comfy groove
►You get to moan about what isn’t right about the job to anyone who is still listening
►You don’t have to face the C-Word – Change!
Change Scares me!
You and the rest of the human race (well apart from the crazy people who thrive on change).
In fact, you are genuinely not alone. A whopping 47% of the UK workforce want to change careers according to research undertaken late last year by the London School of Business and Finance. Over half of these were scared to make the change. 29% of these cited the lack of financial security in their future career as a reason; 20% are not sure what they want to do and 15% are downright fearful of failure. See the infographic and full report here:
http://www.lsbf.org.uk/infographics/career-change
The fact is, you know you’re alive when you’re choosing change.
There’s nothing like change to get the heart pumping faster. If you’ve been putting up with things for any length of time, you may recognise the feeling of just existing.
Existing is not living.
You didn’t sign up to exist, you signed up to live.
Ask yourself this question. “What do I want for my kids/nephews/nieces etc., more than anything else in the world?”
You want them to be happy! You want them to LIVE. Yes, you might also want to keep them in bubble wrap to protect them and keep them safe, but you know that’s not what it takes to live fully and wholeheartedly. And you also know they won’t achieve that unless they stretch their wings and break out every now and again. You know they need to face new challenges and that it won’t be comfortable, but it is necessary for life to be truly lived.
Why, oh why then should it be different for you?
The truth is, I stayed putting up with my job for 10 years too long because like you, I was scared of change. That was the first reason, the second was because I didn’t have a clue what else I would do.
The longer I stayed, the more trapped I felt and the less I knew what I would do, let alone how I would do it. I worked for a large blue chip and there were always opportunities to try something new. But I kept coming back to the same old nagging feeling, that working with ‘widgets’ never really lit my fire. Of course, the longer I stayed, cocooned in the relative safety of this heavy-weight organisation, the less I was exposed to what else was out there.
The less I knew, the more scared I felt about leaving.
I had made a ton of assumptions about what might be out there, but my fear kept me from exploring the reality.
And boy, was ‘reality’ different to what I had imagined. It was way, way better!
What Prompted me to Choose Living?
Eventually, my body took the strain of being unhappy and I had to choose between medical retirement aged 36 or find another way.
At the time, I felt I didn’t really have a choice, but of course, I did. I could have gone down the medical retirement route and claimed a decent income from sitting around watching the world go by.
But as appealing as that sounded on one level, I knew I wanted way more from life than that. It meant being brave and choosing to explore and embrace living. It meant seeking help; stretching my wings and getting uncomfortable every now and again.
More than that, it meant I re-discovered feelings of excitement, passion and even love. My career as a coach has given me all those things, and more. And yes, I am happy.
Will you choose to Change Jobs?
Would you benefit from a friendly cheerleader who has been through the challenge of change to support you in yours? I would be delighted to be that person. Together we will work through my tried and tested Career Change Programme that has helped my clients realise their options and enable them to make choices based on what they discovered about themselves and ‘reality’, rather than what they feared.
Change jobs or stay put? You get to decide by facing the truth and working through your choices with someone who has your back every step of the way.
Contact me today for your free, no obligation 40 minute chat.