Too busy to change careers?
As I write this, we’re just 6 weeks away from Christmas and things are already beginning to ramp up. There are endless to-do lists hung about the place, hundreds of whats app messages yet to be replied to, work emails sitting unread, texts from school that have so far been ignored and the calendar continues to fill up with pre-Christmas festivities and work commitments. There’s the food shopping still to do, the car needs to go in for a service (and a wash), the dog needs taking to the vets, that dentist appointment still needs to be booked and my all time favourite, cakes need to be baked so you can buy them back from yourself later at the school fayre!
It’s a lot.
With all this going on, it’s no surprise that you’ve not managed to carve out the time to think about your career. Yet, you’re still miserable, fed up, dissatisfied, frustrated and unfulfilled. And you know it’s not going to get any better if you don’t take action.
We spend over a third of our lives working or 70% of our waking lives. That’s a huge chunk of time to be unhappy. So, it’s time to start prioritising your career change. Here are a few of my tips and techniques to help you make progress even when life is busy.
Prioritise your career change
We allocate our time and money to the things in life that are important to us or those around us. It’s often been said that if you want to know what matters to someone look at their diary and their bank balance. Often we fall into a sense of imbalance when we’re doing more of the things that feel obligatory than inspiring or things we feel we ‘should’ be doing as opposed to the things that really genuinely matter to us. You need to decide how important your career is to you and to what extent it impacts your whole life. If you’re up at night worrying about it, dreading the next day, feeling stressed and unmotivated, you need to start asking - how important is it to make a change in my professional life? And if it is important, how does that inform the choices you make about the allocation of your most precious resources? Making something a priority doesn’t have to mean carving out huge chunks of time, it could be 5 minutes a day, half an hour a week. The quantity of time is less important than your focus, commitment and intention to take consistent action.
2. Identify clear steps to take (even if you’re confused and unsure about what you want)
People talk about career change as if it’s one ‘big leap’, that you go from one profession to another in the blink of an eye. In reality, it’s a series of small steps over a period of time that you get to define. Navigating such a big change can feel overwhelming if you don’t have a clear process to follow or specific actions to take. It can feel very vague and ambiguous and without that clear sense of direction, however proactive you are, it’s difficult to get started. It can feel overwhelming because you’re having to ask yourself some big scary questions, so no wonder everything else on your to-do list suddenly seems more appealing. In my FREE online workshops, I lead you through my 4 steps to career clarity to give you the tools to kick start your career change. You can follow the link to see dates for the next workshop. In the meantime, start to brainstorm some of the specific things you could do because taking any action is better than things staying exactly the same. Here are a few suggestions:
Listen to a podcast, read a chapter of a book or a blog all about career change
Reach out to those in your network whose jobs have always intrigued you and book in a coffee catch up to pick their brains
Complete an online personality or strengths assessment to gain crucial insights about who you are and what you excel in
Jot down a list of all the things you enjoy doing, feel passionate about or have an interest in and just see what emerges
3. Pinpoint where and when you do your best thinking
Consider where you do your very best thinking that helps to bring about clarity in the midst of confusion. Some people say it’s in the shower or while they’re cooking or driving. I do my best thinking when I’m out in the fresh air on a long dog walk. Pinpoint where and when you start to switch off, gain perspective and allow the thoughts to flow. Commit to have some internal career conversations when you’re feeling calm, relaxed and have a clear head. Make a note of anything that occurs to you that you want to revisit at a later stage.
4. Time track & schedule your shift
If you’ve determined that making a change is a key priority for you but you just don’t know where you can find the time to even start thinking about it, begin by tracking where your time is currently spent. This can help to identify time wasters or tasks that could be delegated, outsourced or dropped entirely. Review your diary or use time tracking tools like Toggl that provide you with a breakdown of how you’ve spent your day or week. Once you’ve identified any margins (however small), schedule this time for your career shift. It’s better to commit to 5 minutes a day for consistency than 3 hours once a quarter. So, identify where those small pockets of opportunity can be found and ensure that you have your pen & paper to hand (and anything else you think you might need) to make the very most of the time. Refer to your list of potential actions (as in tip no.2) so you know exactly what you want to do with that time. It might be simply sending an email to request a coffee with an old connection or ordering that book on kindle to have ready for when you’re next stuck waiting for your car to be serviced. Small steps in the right direction still count as progress.
5. Reach out to your support network
Your perceived sense of busyness can cause you to exist in a state of panic and overwhelm, which can negatively impact your mindset when you come to think about your career as well as your ability to carve out the time to focus on making a change.
Are the things on your task list, jobs that only you can fulfil? What’s essential that you do and what could you delegate to those in your support network? Stephen Covey’s Urgent Important Matrix provides a really helpful tool for determining this, so that you can commit your time to the things that you most want to prioritise and will make the biggest difference.
I work with my clients to help them determine what is really important to them and support them to map out a personalised step by step action plan to ensure they’re on track for achieving their goals. If you're feeling stuck in your professional life right now and need help to identify what might come next, then do Book a Free Strategy Session.
We'll identify where you want to get to in your career, we'll dive into what's going on for you right now; what is and isn't working and we'll identify the challenges and obstacles that are preventing you from making more progress, so you can put in place a plan of action to move forwards.