How many times have you promised yourself that you’ll ask for that raise, find a better job, or fight for the promotion you know you deserve? Companies and hiring mangers expect you to have approximately 11 different jobs over your lifetime. So if you’re 30 and haven’t changed your job at least 3 or 4 times, you may actually be reducing your opportunities for career advancement.
A new job doesn’t necessarily have to be in a new career field, or even in a new company. But most managers expect that you will continually improve your technical and leadership skills, with training, and with a variety of different job experiences. That means career change isn’t an option, it is a requirement for precedence in today’s competitive market.
Find Your Life Purpose FIRST
A significant career transition can take up to two years or more, depending upon the magnitude of the change. However, if you define your Life Purpose first, you may discover that you already have most of the transferable skills you need. And more importantly, you may also find the passion to move forward toward a truly meaningful goal. Choosing a career aligned with your Life Purpose will, automatically, put you on the fast track to success.
Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: it is not to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. – William Jennings Bryan
Career Choices
Whether you want a leadership role, a raise, or an entirely new line of work, making a change is making a choice. A choice for which you are 100% responsible. When you base your career decisions on your Life Purpose, you will have a strong foundation to stand upon when difficulties arise. When your family and friends question your efforts to take on more responsibility and gain more pay, which reason would you like to give them?
A) You choose this new job because you are willing to trade your precious, irreplaceable time for money and put off your dreams until later?
OR
B) You choose this new job because you can work with passion & focus everyday towards meaningful & significant goals–a life of Abundance, Purpose, and Achievement.
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain
I hope you picked B. Otherwise you may need to spend some time to consider the Meaning of Your Life. If you are unsure which direction to focus your efforts or how to get there, listen to your internal Voice, examine what you like & dislike about your current job, and contact a career change coach for guidance.
Change Requires Action
For many people, the biggest problem is simply finding the courage to take that first action toward a new job, a new career, and a new life of exciting but unknown opportunities. They get overwhelmed by the number of hurdles they have to jump or the difficulties they envision ahead. The good news, and the bad news, is that no one knows the future. You can guess and you can plan, but until you take action, nothing will change except your age.
Don’t let apathy destroy your dreams. Take your first step toward achievable career change right now. No matter what career you have now or what new career you want, you can begin a career change with any one of these three things:
- Update your resume or hire a professional resume writer to optimize it for your specific career market. Make sure it describes the important and relevant new achievements, skills, and training that you have TODAY.
- Contact 3 friends or co-workers and ask them to be your professional references. Make sure they are willing to provide enthusiastic praise for your abilities.
- Increase your career network. Join a technical or leadership association, subscribe and comment on a career specific forum or blog, or contact someone who has already achieved a similar goal and ask them to mentor you.
STOP. Don’t just read those three options. Pick one and do it NOW. I’ll wait right here until you come back.
By completing one of those actions, you’ve already created enough momentum to carry you through any career change. The law that “objects in motion will stay in motion” applies to your goals just as much as it applies to the dynamic forces of the universe.
Commitment to Your Career Path
Now that you’ve got the Law’s of Physics on your side, make sure you PLAN to keep moving in the right direction. Set weekly, monthly, and (yes) yearly career goals. Focused deadlines provide a psychological trigger toward accomplishment. They help us recognize that if we don’t take action now, we may not have a chance later.
Reward those actions. Celebrate them with family and friends. Treat your mistakes as an opportunity to grow and become better in your field. But keep going, keep planning, and keep moving along the path of purpose, the path of dreams, the path of passionate achievement.
One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar. – Helen Keller
When you are truly committed to your career change, you will feel both responsibility, meaning you will “accept authority and take initiative”, and loyalty, meaning your will have “devotion or dedication to a cause.” If you want a promotion, a raise, or an awesome job that you love doing, the only way to reach your goals and change your career is to continue taking meaningful and measurable action everyday.
The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. – George Bernard Shaw
PS. Now that you are ready to act, make sure you’ve got the right goals, an actionable & achievable plan, and the motivation to reach your goals. Contact me at writer@liravaughan.com, and I will help you take the next passionate, focused step toward career change success.
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What career change are you considering? How does it fit into your larger Life Purpose? Share your ideas in the comment section! |
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