What do you do if you want to make a career change, but your current job sucks up all your energy? 😞
It’s a bind, right?
The reason you want to shift is also the reason you feel you can’t!
Either work is hijacking your time or is sapping any willpower you may have had, so you find it hard to take even small steps in a new direction.
In this situation, a “bridge job” can be a great strategy.
Here’s to all the parents who’ve been juggling like mad the past two weeks of Easter holiday! I see you…
… Spending the past month coordinating complex childcare arrangements on a colour-coded Excel spreadsheet…
… Project planning a full timetable of activities, entertainment and travel arrangements…
… Multitasking between Zoom meetings, sofa deep-dives for tiny lost Lego parts and fish finger prep…
We think we see the world as it is, and we can feel so certain in our convictions, but our view of the world is clouded by preconceptions, judgements and biases.
Having worked in the industry, I know Blue Monday is PR BS, AND I also know it can be a particularly depressing time of year for you if you’re in the wrong job (a fact I also discovered in my previous career!)
So what can you do if your work is making you blue?
We humans are generally pretty rubbish about predicting what’s going to happen. Psychology research has shown that our cognitive biases mean we tend to…
… be overly optimistic about what’s going to happen to us (believing bad things happen to other people)
… assume that, however much we can see we have changed in the past, the way we are now is going to stay consistent (the “end of history illusion”), AND
… underestimate how well we’ll cope if we DO face challenges ahead.
Are you happier now than you used to be?
Such a hard question to answer, right? Our memories aren’t always the most reliable source of data.
Whether we see the past through rose tinted spectacles or – in contrast – fall prey to our brain’s natural negativity bias, we probably aren’t seeing things exactly as they were.
Navigating a big life upheaval such as a career change is never going to be easy. There are times where the uncertainty feels too uncomfortable or the magnitude of the task too big to bear.
In those moments, the temptation can be to tell yourself your current work situation isn't too bad, that maybe you could just stay where you are, and take the path of least resistance.
But if we really want to make a shift, we have to learn to navigate change effectively, accepting that it's going to be difficult and drawing on strategies to ensure we can do what it takes.
