It is February, but as this is my first blog of the year, I would like to extend my best wishes to you and many, many blessings for the year ahead.
At the end of last year, I asked my readers to complete a short survey where they could share their biggest fears and frustrations about changing careers and I promised to address these in my next blog post.
Unsurprisingly, most answers touched upon finances. Mainly:
· Fear of not earning enough money
· Lack of steady income from starting your own business
“Fear of failure” was also well-represented. For my thoughts on how we can begin to manage this fear, please refer to the following blog posts I’ve written, which may help:
· Is fear holding you back from a career change?
· Taking the pressure off finding the perfect job … in a hurry
Today, I’d like to focus on the elephant in the room whenever career change is openly discussed: the potential financial impact of a career change. Money is a BIG topic in many ways. It cannot fully be addressed in one blog post, but I will do my best to give you the bottom line as I see it.
So, yes, it is likely that changing careers will impact your finances, whether it is as a result of the expense of re-training, taking a pay cut when changing industries, or investing in a new business.
That said, I have changed careers more than once without having to take a pay cut. One way is to switch jobs based on transferable skills. This is most easily done:
· Through networking and connections; People know you and hire you based on what you can bring to a role even if you don’t have direct experience of doing a similar role in the past
· When the company you are working for invests in re-training you for another role
· The employer is flexible and hiring based on culture fit and potential
· Endless other unique possibilities, so I would rather not limit them here :-)
However, if you are reading this and you are worried about the financial cost of doing work you really love (not just “It’s OK” or “Don’t mind it” type of work), it is likely that the gap from where you are now and where you would like to be is quite wide and will require some investment of time and/or money in order to make it happen.
Here is where I put the question back to you: If you are really honest with yourself, how much do you want to change careers? How important is it to you and the life you could be living?
If you are feeling called to do radically different or more fulfilling work, that feeling will not just disappear on its own and your current job is not going to get more interesting the longer you stay in it or a more senior version of it.
As I have written in the past: We tell ourselves we can't afford it. Of course this is a huge consideration that should be managed responsibly, but what is the personal cost to you of staying the same?
Are you ready to continue down the same path until retirement finally arrives, living for your holidays and convincing yourself this is the best you will ever get to do? How will this affect your health, your relationships and potentially your finances if either of the other two are negatively affected by doing work you’d rather not be doing every day?
In my experience, when people approach me with financial fears around career change, they have not sat down to really assess their finances and get creative with how a career change could be funded. Could you downsize? Sell something? Work part-time? Spend less on yearly travel and holidays? Begin as a side-hustle?
Bottom-line: What can you say NO to in order to say YES to a work life you find truly fulfilling?
Of course, if you are in financial situation where there is hardly any room for a new investment, you can still slowly change your career by dedicating some of your free time to it. Even an hour a week to self-learn a skill, research paths to new work, have a coffee with a mentor and network until your financial situation has improved enough to invest in a quicker career change will get you on your way.
The real issue is often the struggle to give ourselves permission to dedicate financial resources to a career change instead of to something else that, on the surface, seems more sensible. Investing in a career change means admitting to the world that you want more from life instead of being content with what you have already achieved, even when you have outgrown it and it no longer inspires you.
Investing in a career change means you are investing in yourself.
This is part of the work I do. I guide you to a place where you will have the confidence to invest in yourself, to learn to navigate uncertainty and dig deeper in order to find the resources you need to make it happen in a way that feels good to you, not just at the start of the career change but throughout the transition.
Career change takes time, commitment and creativity, but I would like to invite you to stop for a moment and imagine:
What would it look like to do the work you dream of doing and get up excited every day to share your best gifts with the world?
I can help you get started, or if you’re already halfway there, I can help you take it to the next level. Book a complimentary introduction to coaching call with me here to get clarity on what your first (or next!) step to a successful career change could be.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.