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6 Steps to Gracefully Make a Change To a Career You’ll Love

Michelle — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 13:37:39 +0000

How to find the courage to change your career and then do so gracefully is no easy task.

The career path you choose is one of the most important decisions you make in life. After all, most of your waking hours each year are spent at work!

If you struggle to find happiness in your current line of work, you may be experiencing a temporary lack of motivation that will quickly disappear. Or it may be a signal that it's time for a change.

A career choice is more than just paying the bills and putting food on the table. You deserve to spend your days doing work you enjoy, and your career should align with your values and goals. You owe it to yourself to find within you the courage to change your career direction!

I am intimately familiar with this pain and the process of making a change to alleviate it.

In my last nursing job, I found myself in a situation where I loved the people I was working with, both clients and colleagues, but I found myself, most days beating my head against a wall trying to get the services my clients needed and too often, coming up short.

I really believed in the work I was doing and knew the funding was there to serve the clients, but too often the ability to access the very services we were tasked to provide were inaccessible.

I was becoming less confident, and often blaming myself, asking myself, “Did I fight as hard as I could have? Maybe I didn’t communicate the need well enough. Could I lay it out in a different way? Why am I not getting the results that my clients deserve?” Thinking like this led me to allow thoughts of work to invade my evenings and weekends, trying to find better ways to get my job done.

This led to anger, frustration, feeling helpless, and sleepless nights.

I knew I was burned out.

This is when I started looking at things in a different way.

I started asking better questions.

What is the purpose of a nurse?

What is my purpose on this planet?

What are my values?

What lights me up?

What frustrates me?

What do I believe?

In doing this introspection, I found that my values were not aligned with the corporate health system the department was a part of. Upon further reflection and research, I learned that it was not just my department or the health corporation, but a national problem, and this was the norm, not the exception.

The current system of healthcare in the United States is broken.

It’s gotten to the point where I am not sure I can call it “healthcare” anymore, due to the lack of care involved in too many circumstances.

This is when I knew I needed a change.

It was not an easy decision, because I’ve been a nurse for a long time and I truly did love what I was doing, when I felt I was making a difference, sadly that did not happen often enough to make up for the frustration.

When I realized I could do something similar, being in business for myself as a coach, this is when it all changed.

This was my favorite part of being a nurse! Helping another person to recognize their worth so they could make the decisions and choices to make the change they desired for themselves. So they could be healthier, happier, more confident, and have what they desire in their lives.

I had been working on my coaching business for a little while, but it was more like dabbling. After working through my process and seeing it as a real career choice, one that fit with my values, expertise and life goals, it became my exit plan.

The inner work, the confidence boost this brought, and the networking is what made the decision a no-brainer. But it didn’t happen overnight.

Making the decision was the hardest part. After that, making the plan to line up the opportunities, volunteering to learn valuable skills and network, and then doing the work needed to phase out my nursing job was what it took for me to take the leap.

I share this with you to help you gain some clarity, offer some suggestions of how to look inward to know yourself, what lights you up and how to go after that, if you are thinking of making a career shift for yourself.

If you are reading this post, chances are you already know there is something off track with either your career choice or workplace at this time in your life.

Awareness is the first step!

You've made that first big step, now you want to know how to make a change and do it gracefully, in a way to feels right to you.

Take Your Time

A career change is an opportunity to think carefully about your values and determine what matters most to you. This takes time. Be patient and give yourself permission to take the time you need to determine what's most important to you in your career.

Ask Questions

Ask yourself some questions to explore your values and find out what's important to you. Why did you choose your career in the first place? What did you like about this line of work? Have those elements of your job disappeared through changes that have taken place, or have you simply forgotten what drew you to this line of work in the first place?

What do you wish you were doing instead? Is there a job within your current company that can better utilize your talents in a more interesting position? Seek advice from your employer on opportunities that exist within your company to learn new skills or transfer to a more interesting position.

Take Small Steps

Take baby steps towards the life you crave. While it may seem right to run away from your current career as fast as you can, a hurried approach may backfire. If you take the time to think through your decisions and make the best decision possible, you'll experience greater joy and fulfillment in the long run.

Accomplish your big dreams by breaking them down into small, manageable action steps.

Seek the advice of others who are already successful in the line of work you're seeking to enter. Structure your goals in a way that allows you to attain regular feedback on your progress, so you know when you're on track and when you're off course.

Start volunteering

Becoming a volunteer allows you to do something you feel passionate about and make a difference at the same time.

As an added bonus, you can often gain valuable, transferrable skills as a volunteer that can be a benefit to you in your next endeavor.

Respect Your Current Employer

When it's time to leave, do so gracefully. As you move closer and closer to the career change you seek, continue to perform your current job to the best of your ability. You may need your current employer as a reference, and an attitude of service will increase your self-confidence as you prepare for a dramatic change in your life.

Believe in Yourself

Trust your instincts and your ability to succeed.

You can achieve any goal that you set out to accomplish. With proper planning and a hunger to succeed, you'll experience the career success you crave. Keep your dreams in front of you, believe you can achieve them, and begin today to take the first steps toward the career you are destined to enjoy.

Remember, the career path you choose is one of the most important decisions you make in life.

With time, asking the right questions, and following the steps above, you can decide what you value and then make sure you are living in those values with your job choice, or explore making a change.

Don't forget, you don't have to do this alone! This is where a great coach comes in. Someone who can illuminate your path so you can see things that may have been hidden from your current view. If you want a guide for your journey, click this link to schedule yourself a free discovery call with me.

FREE Discovery Call

If you find yourself not loving where you are in your career or workplace, you owe it to yourself to find within you the courage to change your direction!

Happy Labor Day! Appreciation for all frontline workers and musings on work.

Michelle — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 01:56:48 +0000

Today on Labor Day please hear my heartfelt appreciation for all front-line workers. You give so much of yourselves to ensure our communities have what we need, day in and day out. We could not get along without you.

Honoring all who use their heart, mind, and hands in their work, whatever form that may take.

Work in service-based industries, what we now call “front-line work”, is what makes the world go round. Can you imagine if there were no waitstaff, no fast-food workers, no convenience store workers, no chefs, no grocery store workers, no healthcare workers, day care workers, mail delivery people, environmental services workers like facilities maintenance, housekeeping or sanitation workers? The world would cease to function. If you are working as a front-line worker, and you are feeling insignificant, please never forget this. The world would cease to function without you and the self-less work you do.

You matter!!

You are appreciated!

Recently I’ve become aware that not everyone has the same idea of what “work” is, and what is valuable and honorable when work is discussed. I had not always thought about work in these lines and silly me, I thought (wrongly) that everyone knows what work is and what is honorable and valuable. But what I know now is these concepts vary a lot depending on where a person’s thinking is originating. Does work mean leaving home at 5 am, commuting 2 hours in stop-and-go traffic, punching a time clock, doing tasks on “autopilot”?

The current pandemic has opened my eyes to what it means to be a frontline worker. I had not thought much about all the different roles that make up frontline work until we had to close all but “essential businesses”. This put a whole new light on a lot of work that many of us take for granted. Well, that can no longer be true, at least for me.

While I’ve always respected whatever shape work takes for people, I’m also aware that not everyone has the same respect for different types of work.

I’ve been asked “when do you work?” and I answer, “everyday” which is true, because work takes many forms and often due to when inspiration strikes, for me this is often a daily occurrence.

I’ve had loved ones question my answer like the one above with, “no, I meant when do you actually go to work?” I now realize this question has to do with a person’s idea of work being a place you trudge to, and a place that is not your home.

It’s been said, “When you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life”, and cliché it may be, but I feel it is true.

I may do a voice record memo while on a walk with wording for an article, research needing to do, or something to add to other pieces of material I’m working on. Then when I get home if I’m still feeling energetic and inspired, I continue the line of thought that my walk inspired. Now I consider my walks part of my work, essential to inspiration, flow and organizing ideas in my mind. It doesn't always look like I'm working when these things occur, but to me it is work.

It is enjoyable AND it is work.

Never let anyone make you think that your work is without value, or not honorable. Especially if that work is not of the “traditional” variety, or if it is not what you went to school for. If you love what you do, it shows in what you do and how you do it. This is something I’ve thought of a lot in the past. I am a firm believer that no matter what job I was doing, I would do my best in that role, if my thinking was on the right path, and the job aligned with my values. “Bloom where you’re planted” is an expression that rolls around in my mind in times like these.

I’ve been a nurse since I was 21, however, I’ve done some additional job roles in my work career that were not nursing related, some by choice, some by necessity. Some roles I’ve worked in addition to nursing are gymnastics coach, realtor, beauty consultant, grocery store cashier, waitress, author, coach. What do all these roles have in common? The main goal of the job role is to serve others. To make another’s day brighter, to empower another to be healthier, to guide to a choice that will make their lives better, learn new things. Trust me, I was not always in a right frame of mind to think these things, but due to lifelong practice in shifting my mindset, I could usually get myself back to a more helpful frame of mind quickly, or after not too much turmoil. I know that no matter what job role I was doing, I would find a way to feel great about it. When doing this, I would then find ways to make the job, the workplace, and the people I worked with brighter, more efficient and a place that works for the purpose it was intended! Lol, that is just the way my mind works.

Is it not work if I enjoy it?

Is it not work if I would, and have done this work voluntarily, and in what normally would be “off-time”?

Does enjoying ones work not mean it is not work? I often hear “work is not supposed to be fun”, or “work is a grind, that’s just the way it is”. I don't agree with this.

I understand we often must do tasks we may not prefer in our work, but if our work is overwhelmingly painful or not fun, it may be time to think of what would make it fun or possibly a career change.

I sometimes hear people say “I can’t wait to retire; I’ll finally get to do what I love”. I am saddened by this the most. Do you know how many people don’t make it to retirement or pass away shortly after retirement?

If you are not doing what you love now, why not? Is there a way you can work in little bits of what you love into you present job? Is anyone making a career out of doing what you love, and you could find a way to do what you love right now, by making a career change?

If you are looking for direction and inspiration, whether its your career, finances, relationships, spiritual life, or other life area that needs clarity, get your FREE pdf to here to “Design Your Abundant Life”

What are your thoughts on work? Does work you enjoy and can't wait to get out of bed for sound like a dream? Or are you already doing work that lights you up?

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. I love to hear what's on your mind!

Be well.