Five Reasons Not To Change Your Career
Five Reasons Not To Change Your Career
Reason 1: I am too old!
Who says you are too old? Ray Kroc didn’t found McDonalds until he was 52, Henry Ford only started his motor car company in his forties. Think what you have going for you bags of experience and a significant number of tested and tried skills. Could this open up opportunities for you to mentor others or even start your own business or how about consulting in your industry?
What else have you got going for you? Well in spite of the recession there is still a talent shortage globally which is forecasted to climb to around 20 million people across the globe over the next few years. Also just about all western economies the demographics are on your side our populations are aging and employers are consequently being forced to change their attitudes to employing more mature workers. What they don’t want to employ are fixed and rigid humans who resist change and learning but you aren’t one of those are you?
Reason 2 No time for Study
It is true that most of us feel time poor and are struggling to juggle our current commitments. It is also probably true that it wouldn’t make much of a difference if we were able to work 24 hours a day there would still be more to do. If I said I would give $10 million (let’s assume you believed I would) to the first person to call me from their bosses office what would you have to do to achieve that? If you were stuck in a traffic jam what would you do?
It is a matter of motivation not time, we can generally find time to do the things we want to if we try hard enough. In the immortal words of the supreme Jedi Yoda “try? don’t try just do”
If you need some help here are some things you can do: spend time like money and be much more conscious of how and where you are spending it. Just doing that can help immediately and then follow this up with setting goals and scheduling specific time to achieve these goals. Last thing make you sure you schedule in 15 -20 minutes thinking time a day and think don’t do, just use it to collect your thoughts If you can action these 4 ideas you are already on your road to getting more done.
Reason 3 I’d change but I don’t know to what?
Quite a common thinking trap this. It goes like this: I want to change but I don’t know what to and as soon as I do know I will be able to change. This is a great example of a mental construct which often leads to circular thinking but no action. As a coach I might ask “Hw long have you been thinking about this then?” to which the reply is often years. There are an estimated 20,000 different sorts of career descriptions out there so who wouldn’t be confused? What you do know if you thought about are what you have in terms of your skills, what you have achieved and most importantly the kind of things you have enjoyed and are interested in. Getting clear on those things is the place to start and then discussing your findings with others. This articulation process allows your thinking to unfold gradually. You can then start to target your investigations in areas of interest. Before you know it you are into career planning. It takes its own time but the time to start that process is now. Having a career coach can really short cut that process for you by the way.
Reason 4 I’m stuck because there is nothing else I could do
Feeling trapped is very uncomfortable and the costs to our well being over time can be high. Check in on your own behaviour how would you classify it are you reacting like a victim or trying to choose your response. Try and take back a little control by starting to think about the cost benefits of not changing compared to changing. As you weigh up the pro’s ad cons think about other strategies and actions that might tip the scales one way of the other to making your current job better or starting the process of finding a better one. Be conscious of your own behaviour and bit by bit practice the behaviours you would like to see in yourself.
Reason 5 I can’t afford to change.
Think about creating some criteria that you might use to describe the perfect job for your self. Choosing careers can be tricky but this approach can help. Here are some illustrative examples that I use but you can create your own.
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Option 1 Current Job Score 1-5 |
Option 2 Retrain than then move to DEF |
Option 3 Move to ABC |
The idea here is to think a little more broadly than just money and allow your ( as Hercule Poirot might say) “little grey cells” get to work. You may have to be pragmatic about your actions in order to reduce any financial risks but at least you could be on the right path and wouldn’t that feel a whole lot better!
Graham Hart is an Executive Coach that helps leaders and organisations create positive change for themselves.He also runs a blog on stress management here
You can contact him on admin@bestcareer-4you.com
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