Clients who I work with who are considering a career change are usually very unhappy with their career. Some clients experience anxiety around their job that is creeping into other aspects of their life, some dreading Monday mornings and some just a bit bored and dissatisfied.
I’ve experienced this myself. I was working in the Bank of England as a research economist (after pursing a long and arduous route to becoming a research economist including a 4.5 year PhD), but was not happy in my job. The problem wasn’t with my job, in some ways it was perfect – interesting, nice colleagues, good working conditions. But I had just had my first child, and was working full time, racing home to collect him from creche and straight into feeding / washing / cooking / cleaning. It was a really difficult time, and I found it really challenging to make the decision to leave economics after such an investment and found it hard to identify other options outside of research / academia.
I ended up retraining as a career advisor and going on to work for 3 years in the University of London helping students identify career options and find and successfully apply for their first graduate roles. I loved this job and remember going around with a big smile pasted on my face for the first few weeks, slightly incredulous someone was paying me to do this job I loved. I also was working 3 days a week which allowed me to spend more time with my son. Since relocating to the West Coast of Ireland I have continued to help clients identify career options and to successfully make career transitions through my company Career Coach Me.
The point of this post is to point out that if I hadn’t experienced that unhappiness and difficult transition I wouldn’t have looked around and changed careers. I wouldn’t have been able to create the work-life balance I have so enjoyed for the past 6 years. Change often comes from unhappiness.
If you are feeling unhappy in your job, maybe you can benefit from my rambling self-reflection, and reframe this unhappiness as a period of growth and reflection that may end up taking your career on a new exciting and rewarding path.
If you want to explore your options together, check out my Career Report & Debrief package here.