Fall Back in Love with Your Career |7 Questions to Ask Yourself
Can you fall back in love with your career? There are so many reasons why any of us can ‘fall out of love’ with our career. It may be burn out, it may be boredom. Whatever the reason, fundamentally when you ‘fall out of love’ with your career you’re minimising your opportunities for personal growth and professional development.
It’s Never Too Late to Change your Career
But, ‘it’s never too late to make a change. Career transition and career growth can happen at any point in your life and career. In fact, most of my clients are mid-life and later life career shifters, who find that with changes in their life there’s a desire to do what’s right for them, right now. What felt right 5 years ago doesn’t feel like a good fit anymore and life’s too short to be miserable in what you do.
Falling back in love with your career, or making a career transition is a series of micro-steps that move you forward to where you want and need to be.
Fall back in love with your career: ask yourself these 7 questions
- How would you describe your current role? Use 5 words to capture the essence of what you do.
This isn’t about copying key words from your Job Description. It’s about the reality of your role and what you do day to day, month on month, year on year. You might surprise yourself with the words that you come up with.
- How do you feel about your current role?
Identifying how you feel about your current role is a crucial step in getting to the root of things. So, let’s say you get the ‘Sunday Evening Blues’ what are you feeling? Are you feeling anxious, overwhelmed? Or are there other feelings in play?
Whatever you’re feeling there is usually a physical manifestation of it. So, what’s happening with your body? For example, when you’re feeling overwhelmed do you feel your heart start to race?
Get in tune with what your body is telling you and acknowledge those feelings.
- Who or what is impacting your energy?
Do you ever wonder if people are actually telling the truth when they say something along the lines of ‘it doesn’t feel like I’m working, I love what I do so much’. There’s some truth in that statement in that if you flip that concept around it brings you to another thought – am I so unhappy in my work that it’s draining my energy? And is that lack of energy reflected in the commitment, motivation and focus you have for your role and your life?
- What would you like to change?
When you consider this question take some time out to really think it through. Sometimes when we’re considering change it can turn out that you don’t necessarily need or want to change your role completely. It may be more about changing elements of it and exploring how or if you can do that. Consider, where do you find the least and most satisfaction in what you do? And, what’s the least and most important aspect of your work to you? Are the most satisfying and most important aspects there for you in the role that you currently have?
- What’s the biggest obstacle to you making a change?
Chances are that fear plays a big part in the answer to this question! Fear…. of failure, of the unknown, of the change it and the effort it will take are all natural fears. So, what is really holding you back and if it is fear, what are you really scared of?
- Do you have a growth or fixed mindset?
When you’re in a growth mindset you believe that the skills that you have right now can be developed and built upon. You believe you can grow and develop professionally and personally.
At the other end of the scale when you’re in a fixed mindset you believe ‘that’s it’. Your abilities are fixed, and by association so is your situation, and there’s no scope for change. This isn’t an easy question to explore but by acknowledging where you may be you can take steps to move into a growth mindset.
- How can a coach or mentor help you to fall back in love with your career?
Having the right people or person to support you during your career can have a positive influence on your success, particularly when you’re considering career change or transition. I work with people at all stages of their career, including career transition and re-igniting your career after burnout, and changing your career in later life.
Work With Me and Re-ignite Your Career
Why not take that first step and book in a call with me to find out more about how coaching can help you to re-ignite your career?
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