Want to change your career?

Are you considering changing your career? Are you bored, fed-up, lost, or otherwise unhappy in your current career? Do you feel stuck? Do you have skills that you are not using in your current career? Are you unsatisfied and change seems impossible? Where do you start?

The first step in moving toward a change of career is to make some space for yourself – provide yourself with the space and energy you need to make honest decisions about what is right for you. Are their any activities you currently do that drain you? Can you remove them from your agenda – even just for a while? Do you have friends or family members that are always negative – can you avoid them for a time? If the things you are doing, and the people you are spending time with, are not providing you with energy and making you feel good, take some time out from them.

Create some physical space for yourself. “Declutter” your life – clean out your car, your house, your office space. Spending some time and energy now to get more organised can free up your energy and motivation.

Identify your highest values? What really gets you motivated; what makes you happy? Even if you don’t have that in your current career, find other ways to bring that into your life through other activities such as hobbies, volunteer work or reading books that inspire you. Make sure you are not changing careers just because of your dislikes in your current job. Make sure you are changing to something that will inspire you.

Spend some time really focussing on what it is you really want in a career. Don’t worry if you think it might be unrealistic at this stage. Use your imagination and create a vision for the ideal career for you.

Explore the possibilities. Don’t worry about looking for particular positions; look for the types of careers that centre around your passions. Just start looking at what is around, researching companies and organisations that interest you, talk to people in roles that you think might be what you are looking for, look at different courses of study that are available, see if there are any volunteer positions that you could do to build your skills.

Look at your transferable skills. Leverage some of your current skills and experiences to your new career. There are many skills (such as communications, leadership, planning) that may be transferable and applicable to what you want to do in your new career.

Use your network to give you job leads, offer you advice and information about a particular company or industry, and introduce you to others so that you can expand your network. Consider your colleagues, friends, and family members and join relevant professional organisations in the field you are interested in.

Be as flexible as you need to be. You may need to be flexible for example around your status, location or starting salary. Perhaps consider a sideways move that could result in a bigger career change.

I hope I have given you some ideas for things you can start with right now to create a great new career for yourself. You, like everyone, deserve to be doing something you love. What you love is usually related to your special nature, values and talents, so it will also bring the most to this world. Go for it!