Five Steps to Assist in Changing Your Career Path   

You may find yourself hitting a wall in your current career for many reasons. Perhaps you see no upward growth at your company, the people in higher positions aren’t planning on leaving anytime soon, or you are simply ready to make a change.  Depending on how long you have been in your position, the idea of changing career paths can be daunting.  If you start that dance around maybe just having a bad month or bad quarter, you may figure things will get better after the next project, or with new growth in the company you are bound to have a chance in daily duties.

Taking the time to re-assess what is important to you, what you really need, will allow you to get a clearer vision in how to proceed.  Compare it to the time you took a long vacation and came back realizing you wanted to get out of the relationship you were in. Sometimes you just need to get some new perspective in life.  Here are five steps to take in order to assist in changing your career path. Luckily these tips won’t cost you a vacation!

Step 1: Declutter Your Living Space 
The first step is decluttering your home. If this sounds crazy, the next time you walk into your place of living and see items in disarray, imagine what you might feel like if you came in to a more organized living space.  Give yourself a couple of days to do this, but use it as a way to get rid of any items you don’t need. You can simply throw them away or arrange to donate some, such as clothes or appliances, and post some on apps that are used specifically to sell used items. You might even be able to make some cash on this!  I recommend going through one room at a time if possible. Leave sentimental items for last. Many begin with clothing since it tends to create the most clutter.

Step 2: Assess Expenses
After you have put your place in order, make a list of your current expenses. Don’t leave anything out including any monthly memberships, weekly amount spent on food, and staples such as rent and utilities. Look through the list and make any adjustments of things you can live without and cancel immediately. You can also look to decrease some items such as food by cooking more often and skipping the coffee or lunch you spend on each week.  Sometimes this can be an eye opener about where you spend your money. It might just be that kick you need to start meal prepping again or getting rid of the clothing or magazine membership you just don’t use.

Step 3: Create a Happy List 
You’ve now successfully made your place of living more peaceful and cut down on expenses to get a clearer idea of what you need to make each month. Now let’s get to the fun stuff.  Make a list of everything you enjoy doing. Forget about what you put on a resume or what sounds professional. Give yourself a few days to come back to this list.  This allows you to see a full list of the actions and experiences that bring you joy. You might be surprised at what you wind up writing down!  Some of my favorite authors and entrepreneurs talk about how they write every day. It isn’t always their next big idea or book, but it allows them to continue to get their ideas out in order to take the next step in where their business or life is going.

Step 4: Network 
Now that you have a fabulous list of things you love to do, take a look at your current network contacts.  Make a list of those contacts who are either in fields that interest you or are a connection to some of the actions and experiences you put on your happy list. Make a point of connecting with 1-2 of these contacts each month. This allows you a chance to sit down with different professionals and get their point of view on their own careers and could provide new insights and ideas.

Step 5: Long-Term Goals 
It is important in this time of change to ensure you are also thinking about long-term goals. Creating a pathway to the future not only encourages new drive for change but also allows you to feel a larger sense of urgency in your current actions. Start with financial, professional, social, and emotional goals and expand from there. You may not have ideas for all of them, but allowing yourself to think long-term and strive towards bigger goals will assist in driving you to want to change.

These steps may not work for everyone and are not the only way to assist you in finding a new career path. Keep in mind that you can find many ways to go about changing the path that you are on. Getting new perspective can be refreshing, honest and gratifying.