One of the phrases I hear most often in my conversations with budding career changers is “I just fell into this…” (their current line of work).
If you’re saying this to yourself now, I’ve got news for you. You didn’t “fall into” this. At some point down the line, you made a decision.
… Perhaps it was a decision that made sense at the time.
… Maybe you were in your early 20s and feeling the weight of student debt so chose a path solely because of the earning potential.
… Maybe it was the “logical choice” based on what you studied at university.
… Maybe you just followed what friends or family were doing because you couldn’t think of anything else.
… Maybe (like me, when I chose to work in PR), you went on the advice of someone saying “you have XXX skills, you should work in XXX”. In my case, this was an interviewer for a journalism/writing job I was (unsuccessfully) applying to, who’d known me for all of ten minutes.
The point is, if you’re unhappy in your work, the chances are that you made a decision based on limited information – both in what you actually WANT and in what this career might BE LIKE in practice.
If you’re wanting to make a more conscious decision about your next career move, I recommend:
Going really broad first. Get as many ideas in the mix as you can initially before you narrow down. Otherwise, you could be blinkering yourself to possibilities that you can’t even SEE right now, let alone be.
Doing due diligence. Before committing to any one idea, go check each one out in a thorough fact-finding mission. Ask yourself – what’s the closest I can get to this so I can find out if it’s really for me? This will likely involve speaking to people in those lines of work, and could also include work shadowing, volunteering, going to related events or short courses.
Trusting your gut. I believe that the best decisions are a mix of head and heart, fact-finding and intuition. If something doesn’t feel right, even if “on paper” the career path you’re exploring sounds like it should tick a lot of boxes, listen to that feeling. The body doesn’t lie. It’s easy to talk yourself into an idea, especially if you’re desperate to get out of your current job, AND it can risk jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
Who or what inspired the decision to go into your current career?