Career Change Should be Celebrated not Avoided.

Career paths don’t need to follow a straight line for everybody.

It comes a time when the feeling of meaningful work becomes more important than any other aspect of work, including pay and rewards, researchers say.

If we invested a lot in our career so far and we feel that our work is not valuable and significant enough, it can trigger dissatisfaction. It can be the missing link to truly enjoying our work.

We feel disengaged while looking for a sense of purpose in our work. Maybe our values and interests have taken a different shape lately or our industry has drastically changed. Or, maybe our old direction needs to come in alignment with our family life.

Sometimes, we become inspired to shift gear just because we are finally ready to take the risk and follow our interests.

Or sometimes it is a life event, a change in our family situation, a series of disappointing professional experiences, or a repetitive boring routine that convinces us that we need to reevaluate our career direction.

Similar to the way we would react to outdated software, upgrading to the latest available operating system, we may need to make a serious upgrading to our career.

Whenever we feel stuck in a career dilemma, redefining our trajectory is done depending on our particular situation. It could mean that we need to do small adjustments, smoother changes, or critical shifts.

It is always great to reinvent our career for matching our latest needs, giving a chance to our old talents to unfold, or bringing to light the latest acquired skillset or interests. We may even reflect and realize that we are a different person from the one we were in our 20s when we make the first career decisions.

No matter the circumstances, making career changes is never that easy. Especially for those who invested a great deal of energy, time, and education in building their career and have grown successfully up to a point. Reconsidering the whole structure, or start building new bridges again may seem too risky.

2020 is a tough year in the job market. And years to come may bring even more challenges from this perspective. So being proactive and preparing ourselves well in advance for a career change is always a great idea.

We may all need now to go back to normality, some of us, to a different kind of career normality.

So, even if a career change is unexpected and not planned by us, why not take the opportunity to check if it needs upgrading?

When our work is no longer relevant for us, avoiding making a decision will only aggravate the situation.

As the world of work is changing fast, we need to stay flexible and to adapt. The hard fact is that:

Career paths as were defined years ago are no longer relevant for all of us. Many traditional careers do not exist anymore and the world of work is changing and reinventing as we speak.

When it comes to career all of us need to be crafters.

We may like it or not, the way we design, refine, and polish our career along the way is influencing its success. It is our call to act or react and no one else can be held responsible for our decisions but us.

Reinventing our career comes hand in hand with our personal development. We should always expect and work toward a career that supports who we are.

The purpose is our driver, which is personal and it disregards outside expectations. It’s something we have to figure out for ourselves.

Therefore, sometimes when we reinvent ourselves and experience personal growth we need to be prepared to make some career adjustments as well.

We need to be prepared to upgrade our careers more than once during our work-life if needed. So, remaining flexible and ready to adapt as required by the context, means we are in charge and, we run our career.

Before deciding how to change our career, trying answering these questions first may help:

• Will the new career direction give us the context to use our skills and to do what we enjoy?
• What we want our career to give us, besides a paycheck?
• Our career and life goals, how they fit together?

Hot Tip: Our job and career exist within the context of our life. Another valid idea is finding meaning in life, and then looking at how the career adds up to our life purpose.

Ideally, showing the same openness and curiosity as if we were again in our early-career stages let us explore our new career options better.

According to the paper published in Psychological success and the boundaryless career. Journal of Organizational Behavior, in the early-career stages people usually try out different career options and attempt to select the best ones that match their abilities and serves their interests.

Somehow, along the way, it’s easy to get caught up in our work and lose track of other important things. Going back to basics and looking again with fresh eyes always helps.

I wrote more about selecting career options to match better our abilities and interests here:

And I wrote more on how we stay relevant for long-term career success here:

Putting it All Together.

Maintaining our work in sync with your talents, values, and ever-changing working environments helps us keeping our work meaningful.

When we reinvent our career we have the chance to take a look once again at what’s most important to us.

With the right mentality, preparation, planning, a lot of courage and confidence relaunching our career is well within your reach.

After all, it is a matter of purpose and great maturity to ensure we remain relevant to the changes around us.

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