When faced with any change, it is natural to be worried about it. It is our body's way of protecting us from the unknown. However, if we stay stagnant and do not challenge our fear, we are not giving ourselves the best chance at this amazing life. Over 85% of Australians are not engaged in their work, that is a staggering majority of us who are getting up each morning feeling indifferent at best or devastated at worse about the prospect of going to work. This makes me sad to my core. I see it in people’s eyes as they trudge into their high-rise building wishing they had a role that they were passionate about, where they believed that they were making a difference, or maybe that their lotto numbers would come up. We would be kidding ourselves if we thought we had not been there at some point (even if only for a day). For some of us, that feeling of disengagement is enough to make a change, but for others, our fear holds us back.
Allowing fear to rule our decisions becomes problematic. In her book, “The Loudest Guest – how to change and control your relationship with fear,” Dr. Amy Silver talks about the different roles we can allow fear to have in our lives. It teaches that we should welcome fear but not allow it to control us, just give it the authority to provide commentary, which we can take on board and make our own decision. Fear is a useful emotion; in a bygone era, it helped us survive when being attacked by a Sabre Tooth Tiger. We should however recognise that some of our fears, such as public speaking or going for a job interview, while unlikely to kill us, illicit the same fear response biologically. Being aware that the fear response works the same if we are triggered by a clown or a cougar is helpful to put our fear in perspective.
I have given a lot of thought to why people resist a career change, talked to countless technical professionals about their career, and I have realised that for a complex issue, it can be broken down into 3 areas of focus to develop the ability to make a change.
When you have the courage to make a change and the strong knowledge of where you want to get to, you have conviction of your ability to get there. Conviction is vitally important in making a career change because it is what shows others that you believe in yourself and have the confidence to face any challenge presented to be successful.
When you combine energy with courage, you can act, you are not being held back by fear, and you have overcome the tendency to stay stagnant with the passion you have for what lies beyond the change.
In life, you are a sum of your experiences, if you are happy with your experiences being similar throughout your life, if you were lucky enough to have found your dream job out of university, if you risk profile is such that making a change would be a terrible experience, if you honestly love the people you work with and are excited by the prospect of going to work, then by all means stay in that great job, but if you are only there because you are scared to take action, it is time to figure out why you are fearful, get clarity, energy, and courage to make a change.
If you are feeling like you have more to offer than your current role demands, feel like there you could be more closely aligned to your work? I would love to talk to you about my Career Coaching package designed to improve fulfillment in your career.
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