Wanting to make a career change but doing nothing about it?

Have you been thinking about making a change in your career for a while but you're still in a job where you're not going anywhere?

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Sometimes it's not just about not being able to figure out what steps to take, when we continue to stay in a place where we no longer feel fulfilled and truly successful.

Allow me to ask you this question: what's your relationship with failure?

Quite often we decide to give up on transforming our careers because we have what psychologists call "cognitive dissonance": the discomfort from holding two conflicting beliefs, values or attitudes. Basically, on one hand, we tell ourselves how much we detest our current job and how desperately we want to change; on the other hand, we tell ourselves we are not good at what we are doing and will not succeed in a new job. This is very much connected with how we see failure.

If you are doing nothing about your career because of fear of failure, I invite you to reflect on a few points:

  • what's your definition of success?
  • what can you do to stretch yourself and be in a place where learning allows you to reach your potential?
  • what support do you currently have in terms of people and resources to help you with the change you want to make?
  • how can you turn your limiting belief into something that serves you?

Sometimes we get stuck because we get trapped in our fixed mindset which tells us that we need to constantly prove that we are smart, otherwise we lose our value. This is one of the ways for us to continue to choose our comfort zone and miss the opportunity to learn, to grow, to fall, to pick ourselves up and grow further.

As a little child, you put all your effort into walking. Yes you fell many times but you didn't give up.

We all have inside a deep desire and inclination to stretch ourselves, to learn and be successful in areas we never imagined. We have just allowed fears, approval from others, expectations (from others and from ourselves) to limit us.

What action can you take today to start transforming your career and be more aligned with who you truly are? How are you in touch with your professional self?

Your professional identity 

There's a huge body of research that proves that we get to a place of authenticity in our work life and job satisfaction when our professional identity is closely aligned with our personal identity.

Identity is all about the meanings given to us by others and by ourselves. These meanings are built up through a complex web of experiences and behaviours, including social roles, group membership (our social identities) and personal traits that we display. Identity is the way we portray ourselves and how others respond to us.

Now, I'm asking you to close your eyes, take a nice deep breath and allow yourself to explore these questions:

  1. What do you think about your professional identity?
  2. Does it convey what you want it to about you?
  3. How do you feel about the assumptions and judgements that you think people are making, when you tell them what you do?
  4. What image comes to your mind, when you look at the behaviours you display in your job?

The more you're comfortable with your professional identity, the more you're comfortable with your job, which allows you to have more clarity on how you want to approach your next move.

How do you feel?

Sit with this feeling for a few days. Give yourself permission, to be honest and compassionate to yourself. You will start opening a few doors that might have been locked for a while.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author. All articles published on Life Coach Directory are reviewed by our editorial team.

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