I sometimes tell clients to imagine if their lives were being filmed. You are the main character of your movie. There are a lot of ways that you could write the movie. But I’m sure that doing the same dull or uninspiring job year after year would not be one of them. What stops most people from moving forward?
A complete failure to understand that career exploration is not the same as career change and an extraordinary exaggeration related to the risks of career change.
As to exploring career change: Here, I don’t mean fleeting thoughts when you are driving to work about escaping your current job to some not-yet identified job but rather serious exploration through research, analytical review, and, yes, speaking with an expert career counselor. Careers are a large part of life so I am not so concerned with the self-serving statement in the last sentence.
As for risk: I’m a father of three and for many years was the sole breadwinner of five. I come from a family where my father worked at the same company for 30 plus years and my mom was risk adverse. I started my career as an attorney, a profession designed to point out risks to clients. That’s a long way of qualifying myself as someone who was not programmed to take career risks. But I simply say with full clarity after providing career counseling services through Career Counseling Connecticut for the last dozen years that those who ultimately chose to switch careers realized that they had grossly exaggerated the risk in doing so.
Here’s why: after meeting with Career Counseling Connecticut and coming up with a career vision, my career counseling clients don’t simply quit their jobs. Instead, over a period of time – for some 3 months, for some a year or more – the career changer plans the move, sometimes with further career coaching and sometimes without. When they finally change careers, they have their plans in order and do not feel that they are taking a big risk. Most are simply excited to finally – FINALLY!!! – be doing something they love.