Time For A Career Change 11 Uncomfortable Signs You Need To Make A Shift

Time For A Career Change 11 Uncomfortable Signs You Need To Make A Shift Expert Advice > How to break out of analysis paralysis Time For A Career Change? 11 Uncomfortable Signs You Need To Make A Shift * You’re thinking about a new career. But how do you know if you really need a change? Are these feelings just normal ups and downs, or are they warning flags you need to pay attention to? Check out our guide to the most important clues you're in the wrong career. How many feel familiar? It's starting to bother you, this insistent, buzzy thought. “Just pack it in. Find something else.” It started off quietly; easily-dismissed as nonsense. But over time, it's been getting stronger, louder, harder to ignore. And yet, it's not as easy as “just pack it in.” What if you're just being melodramatic? What if you're being seduced by all the pop-culture, pseudo-psychology, unrealistic rubbish out there in the media, when actually you should just be grateful to have a steady job at all? Sometimes, it's hard to tell if it's truly time to take the plunge and change career, or if you simply need to sort yourself out, get your head down, and wait for the storm to pass. Here's our (absolutely non-comprehensive) guide to the most common signs it's time to make a shift. Which of these do you recognise? 1. Body breakdown You feel it most at the beginning and the end of the day. Heavy, tired, drained of energy. As your mind pipes up with its piercing morning chorus of “ugh” and “oof” and “do I have to?”, your body joins in with the bassline; weight and ache and slowness. And in the evenings, as you arrive home from work, all you want is to flop; to try and recoup just a little bit of the energy you've spent all day pouring out. You're developing aches and creaks in places you've never creaked before. Your shoulders feel permanently tense (although you hadn't realised quite how knotted they were until you just reached your hand up now to check). Are you getting sick more often, perhaps? More prone to colds and twinges? The physical signs of an unhappy career are insidious. They creep up slowly, almost imperceptibly. You wonder if they're just part of getting older, or if they're connected to something else. But they're there. “I tried to suppress and squash my feelings about my job so much that it started to have a negative effect on my health. I was prescribed anti-depressants at one point, but they didn't work because I hadn't addressed the underlying cause: the job I was doing every day. “What brought matters to a head was when I started getting very severe chest pains, despite being only 26 and in very good health. The doctor couldn't pinpoint the cause and the medicine he gave me didn't work…. They carried on every day continuously for two months until my boyfriend begged me to quit my job.” â€" Santhie Goundar 2. Chronic busy-brain You're familiar with the Sunday Night Blues, right? That rising sense of dread as the weekend draws to a close... But what you don't hear so much about are the Sunday Night Blues's nightmare relatives: Midnight-Crazy-Thought-Loop, First-Thing-In-The-Morning-Panicky-Pitter-Patter, Depressing-Daydreams, and Poke-Me-In-The-Eye-Everything-Is-Hopeless. If they sound like regular visitors to the inside of your head, it might be time for a shift. The spinning thoughts are exhausting, especially when they show up in the middle of the night (hello, Crazy-Thought-Loop!) â€" desperately trying to figure out what kind of work might actually make you happy, beating yourself up for not having the answers, wondering if the problem might be you and not your work… When the alarm goes off and you pull yourself out of bed, the Pitter-Patter comes to visit: “You just have to pull yourself together. It's not that bad; it's up to you to make today enjoyable. It's all about mindset, right? What is there to look forward to today? Oh god, there's nothing to look forward to today… what am I doing?” Some days, often right after lunch, your brain takes you off to gorgeous worlds of fun and fulfillment. Imagine… you're successful, paid well, doing something you love. You leap out of bed at 6 a.m., bluebirds help you get dressed, and you and your colleagues skip into the sunrise hand in hand, laughing beatifically on the way to the best office in the world. And then you're back under the fluorescent strip-lights with a bump. You start scrolling through job ads, hoping that the daydream was a harbinger of inspiration and good luck. But it wasn't. Of course it wasn't. Because this is all a bit hopeless, isn't it? Enter Poke-Me-In-The-Eye, stage left. There's just no point. It's too late. You're never going to figure this out. Frankly, you should be grateful just to have work right now â€" who do you think you are? Everyone has days when busy-brain takes over. Nobody is 100% happy, all the time. But if the inside of your mind is constantly spinning with doubts and questions and desperation, it's probably about time you began to listen to it. “I think to myself 'Why are you unable to make a decision, when everyone else around you has?' I get home every night and spend hours looking at other job roles, researching, coming up with blanks, and frustrating myself even more. “It genuinely takes over every part of my life; whether I'm daydreaming in the car, working out in the gym, watching TV at night, or out with friends, I can't stop thinking about what to do with my life.” â€" Becki 3. Confidence canyon You're starting to wonder if the problem is, in fact, you. It feels like you're the wrong shape for this position; you don't fit into your work. It's awkward and uncomfortable, and it's dull. You're not doing as good a job as you know you could… or, as you know you should… because it just doesn't flow naturally. Or, if you're good at your job, it should feel better to be good at it. But it doesn't feel good. As the weeks and months and years pass by, you're feeling less and less strong. Less and less yourself. And the more you feel less like yourself, the less you feel like you could ever do anything else. You imagine being happy and fulfilled at work, but it feels like gazing across a huge, yawning divide. The idea of a career you love is so high up, far away, and beautiful... and you're so tiny and useless... “I found that I had to change a lot in order to fit in. But I realised that I didn't want to keep fitting in: I wanted to find a way to be myself and love what I did. The problem I had was that I didn't know what I could do. I'd beaten all my creativity out of myself, and I'd been so long in an environment where I was effectively spoon fed who I was and what I did, that it was hard to imagine what I could do beyond that.” â€" Sam Dounis 4. Sticky money If it weren't for the money, you’d have left by now. The pay cheque is regular / chunky / keeps the parents happy / insert relevant adjective here You have responsibilities. You need to take care of the mortgage, your family, your future. All important points. Money's great. But is that the main reason you're staying in your career? If the cash is the only thing keeping you from exploring a shift, explore a shift. Life is too short to exchange your happiness for a pay packet. Maybe you'll have to take a pay cut to shift, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll get paid more in a new career, maybe you won't. But how you make things work financially is figure-out-able. Waking up every day knowing your life has a price tag... is not. “I'd been thinking about leaving for a long time, half-heartedly sending off a few job applications now and then… but I had to fight with my 'rational' side that raised concerns about leaving a great salary behind for an uncertain future.” â€" Anna Lundberg 5. Self-medication You wouldn't call it a vice, exactly. It's just an extra round in the bar after work. Another evening in front of the TV. More bags of stuff on your way back to the car from the shops at the weekend. You'll just nip in here on your way home from work â€" get yourself a little something as a reward for getting through the week. You did it yesterday, too, and you've probably spent more than you should have, but what the hell. It's good to treat yourself, right? And then maybe you'll go and meet your friends at that bar, and stay out a few rounds beyond the point you normally would, because if you go home you'll just start thinking about Monday rolling around again. Hangovers are still kind of funny, right? You'll binge-watch that series instead of going to the gym, because you just don't have the energy. You don't have the motivation to do any of the things you used to love doing. You've used it all up at work this week. You can't be bothered any more. Whatever your poison might be, if you're trying to block out the discomfort of an ill-fitting career by pouring something else into your life, it's time to take how you're feeling seriously. “What do I regret? I wish I'd put more money into an escape fund and not tried to numb my misery with meaningless shopping for stuff I don't even remember owning.” â€" Carla Watkins 6. Split personality Being at work feels like putting on an act. You're not sure how it started, but you're different there. You can almost feel the mask coming down over your face as you make your way to work each day. Maybe you're more pushy, cut-throat. You're always trying to impress your boss, hit goals, meet targets… and that's not who you are. Or perhaps you disappear at work â€" you keep quiet, keep your head down, stay on the edges of things. At home, or with your friends, you're confident and playful, but at work you just… shrink. Whatever the change might look like when you switch from 'work' you to 'not-work' you, it's uncomfortable. It doesn't sit right to be spending so much of your week playing a role. But that's just how it has to be sometimes, right? Right? “I distinctly remember the feeling I had every morning when I came up the escalators [to work]. The further up these escalators I came, the more suffocated and overwhelmed I felt, like life was closing in on me and I was just standing there letting it all happen.” â€" Stine Dulong 7. Future-proofing You're unhappy where you are right now. But imagining yourself doing your boss's job, or your boss's boss's job, is even worse. Feeling despondent about your future is not a sign of a well-fitting career. You know that. But you'll just… ignore it, for now. Block that thought out. Just enough to get you through the next week at work. And then the next one. I call this future-proofing: making your brain a Thoughts-of-the-Future-Free Zone. And perhaps you've now future-proofed your brain for long enough that a whole year has gone by, and you're still in the same place. The longer you pretend that the future you don't want isn't coming, the faster it hurtles toward you. How long are you going to pretend it's not coming? How long are you going to pretend you're not already there? “I was a happy commercial lawyer, with a great boss and interesting work. However, I didn't look around my firm and aspire to be a partner. My view was that if I didn't want to be at the top of the food chain in the place where I worked, then I was probably in the wrong place.” â€" Kate Jackson 8. Touchy subjects Your career is tough to talk about. At parties, you dread the inevitable question: “So, what do you do?” You're not proud of the answer, so you brush it off quickly, jokingly, with a shrug. People you love have stopped asking you how things are at work, because they know what the answer's going to be. Maybe it's an ongoing joke among your friends that you hate your job; there have been enough long evenings where you've waxed lyrical about how awful it is. Maybe they're starting to run out of patience with it. Or perhaps you've stopped talking about it to your family, because they don't understand, and it's become a big, uncomfortable elephant in the room. You don't want to be the one who drags conversations down, but at the same time you're driving yourself crazy inside your own head, and it feels like there's nowhere to turn. “I realised that whereas I used to talk about my work in a really positive way, I was now constantly complaining to friends and family about it. I was even boring myself.” â€" Siobhan Goffee 9. Irreconcilable differences This isn't a new feeling for you. And it's not something you've just pushed under the rug. You've tried already to improve things in your current career. You've spoken to your boss; you've tried adjusting things in your role to make it suit you better. You might even have moved to a different company, but nothing's working. Either how you're feeling isn't being taken seriously, or the changes you've made still haven't shifted the deep-down sensation that you're just fundamentally in the wrong place. You're not the kind of person to simply complain about nothing; if something's wrong, you'll try to fix it. But it seems like somehow, if you're honest, this isn't something a few tweaks is going to remedy. “Although I knew in my gut it was not for me, I continued trying to 'make it work'. I tried a number of different industries within the finance world and it made no difference â€" I wasn't enjoying it. My confidence was at an all-time low. I had no interest in progressing â€" I couldn't bear the thought of being in a more senior role.” â€" Catherine Allen 10. Resignation It feels like you're living under a blanket. Soft, blurry around the edges. Muffled. The edges are still there, but you've stopped feeling them so intensely. What's the point? Anything for a quiet life, you're numbing yourself against the disappointment and sadness you've been feeling at work. Apathy has set in. Needing a career change can often feel violently uncomfortable, painful, and deeply emotional. But it can also feel like pure, unadulterated nothingness. You don't care anymore. You don't care about the projects you're working on. You don't care about the office politics. You don't care if you're doing well or not. You're just getting through each day. If you've reached the point where you've essentially given up, it's time to shake things up. “I never really felt I was in the right place; I couldn't identify with the product or the industry. It got so bad that I was coming home every day without being able to feel or be creative: my head was just blank.” â€" Stephanie Trensinger 11. You're here Frankly, if you're asking yourself if it's time to make a career change, there's a good chance it's time to make a career change. These kinds of doubts don't show up for someone who's fulfilled in their work. Sure, there are tough days and stressful periods, but a great fit is a great fit. Unless you're here, reading this article, for purely academic purposes, it's a fairly safe bet you're not happy where you are. Trust your gut. Which of these signs do you recognise? Let me know in the comments below.

The Disadvantages of Working from Home - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

The Disadvantages of Working from Home - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Last week I discussed the advantages of working from home. This week, I am going to talk about the disadvantages so you can decide which working style works for you. First, let’s remember the advantages of working from home. When you work from home, you have more flexibility in terms of managing your time as well as more convenience. You can also get rid of hidden costs such as transportation and you have fewer distractions from your coworkers. You can avoid unimportant meetings and use this time to finish up your work. Moreover, when you work from home, you have better work-life balance and you can be healthier since you can cook for yourself rather than snacking at your desk. You have seen some of the advantages of working from home. However, you should always look at the other side of the coin before making your decision. Below you can find the disadvantages of working from home. Read below and decide which one is better for you. 1.  Isolation: An office is a workplace where you can meet with other people, socialize and chit-chat. However, when you work from home, you have less social interaction. You generally interact with others through phone or video conference. Therefore, you may start to feel lonely after a while and miss your life in the office. 2.  High self motivation required: When you are working from home, you won’t have a boss standing on top of your shoulder and waiting for you to finish that report. While not everyone needs a boss like this to finish their tasks by the deadline, you still need to have a lot of self discipline and motivation to always stay on top of your to-do list. 3.  Distractions: While there are distractions in the office because of coworkers, the distractions of working from home are much different. You can get distracted from your neighbors, kids or other family members. You need to make sure that they know you are actually working and you are unavailable when you are working from home so they don’t distract you. Also, running errands at home such as laundry, washing the dishes, etc. can be other distractions to your work. 4.  Danger of not getting promoted: When you are out of site, you can be out of mind as well. Therefore, your boss may forget you and you can be overlooked for promotion. However, you can avoid this situation with regular office visits such as once a week or twice a month. By these visits, you can remind yourself to your coworkers and especially to your boss and prove your dedication to your career.

The Road to Success 30 Tips and Hints

The Road to Success 30 Tips and Hints The saying is true that you first need to give in order to gain. Real success doesn’t come from a miracle in a single day. But it doesn’t mean you have to deprive yourself of all the other aspects of your life to reach it. You don’t have to give up everything that brings happiness and enjoyment to your days. There is a way. You can reach your goal while having a normal life, full of joy and good times. And this infographic is going to help you with that. Custom-Writing.org put together some of the habits and qualities people develop in order to achieve success. It doesn’t even matter what your occupation is. The tips described here can be applied to any profession, career path, or goal you’ve set.

The Interview Is Not a Chat But Trust Building - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

The Interview Is Not a Chat But Trust Building - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Even if you’re told the interview is just an informal chat, don’t believe it. The interview is a business transaction whereby both parties are exploring the opportunity to initiate a work relationship. But if you stop and think about what is at the core of that potential future work relationship, the logical answer is mutual trust. Yes, we all agree that the interview is a process whereby the employer wants to determine whether you have the skills that employer is looking for, and if so, whether you’d be good at them or just average, whether you could solve work-related issues, whether you’d be well accepted by your peersâ€"meaning, whether you’d fit into the organizational cultureâ€"and so forth. The employer knows there are other options and so reviews other applicants. But the candidate, too, knows there are other options and can explore other prospective employers. Above all, though, both parties are asking themselvesâ€"actually during the interview processâ€"whether th ey can trust each other. Mutual trust and confidence This basic concept of mutual trust and confidence was solidified by the legal system in the distant past when it referred to the employment relationship between employee and employer carried an understanding that there is an implied obligation between the two parties to behave in a way that does not undermine that mutual employment relationship. Simply put, both parties should have each other’s back. This means that each party is expected to trust the other. What does trust mean? If you asked people how they interpret trust and what trust means to them, you’d get many and various answers. I’ve tested this numerous times when presenting to large groups, and the answers have clearly demonstrated to me that trust means different things to different people. For me, trust means you do what you said you’d do. On one hand, similar to the establishment of a personal reputation, trust is not something someone can establish instantly; it takes a long time to establish one’s trustworthiness because trust is based on behavior that is cumulative and over time. On the other hand, trustworthiness can be destroyed in an instant. How to evaluateâ€"and demonstrateâ€"trustworthiness during an interview? An easy way for an employer to test a candidate’s trustworthiness is via the common and mostly dreaded interview question, What are your weaknesses? I have never met anyone who likes that question. Here the employer is testing the candidate’s honesty and, thereby, trustworthiness. A good answer here is to talk about an occurrence in the not too distant pastâ€"something that is common and plausible wherein the candidate admits failure but then claims to have been smart enough to learn from it and by now has so well fixed it that others ask for his advice. This is a turnaround tactic that works in most cases. In a job interview, the candidate should give several examples whose common thread shows honesty, dependability, reliability, and credibility. They all lead to trust. Conversely, the candidate, too, should look for those same qualities in the prospective employer. Mutual trust will lead to a long-term employment relationship.

The Secret To Writing A Good Software Engineer Resume Summary

The Secret To Writing A Good Software Engineer Resume SummaryWhen you are looking for a job as a software engineer, your resume is one of the first things that potential employers will see. The more detailed and specific your resume is, the better chance you have of being selected for the job.A typical resume might include the same information for each position: name, job title, contact information, address, contact number, position held and so on. This would be fine if you were applying for just one job, but what if you were applying for more than one position at a time? It can become overwhelming, especially when you have to rewrite the resume for each position you are applying for. The right way to write a software engineer resume summary is to write one resume for each position you are applying for.The way to write different software engineer resume summaries is to break it down into different sections, and then customize it for each position. For example, you could write a 'gene ral' engineer resume summary for every position where you are applying for. This way you can include all of the information that will apply to all positions, such as position title, job description, description of work, position duties, responsibilities, pay range, etc.Then, you could choose to customize your resume and title it 'Specific Job Application' or something to that effect. You could also break your engineer resume into several categories, such as 'engineering team'engineering project'. This would help you organize the content for each section and make the application easier to read and understand.You can also add information on your specific accomplishments and credentials when writing a software engineer resume summary. This will give you a personal touch and is not a necessary part of the job description.Before you put too much information on your software engineer resume summary, however, you should take some time to properly prepare for the job interview. This will ma ke sure that when you go in for the interview, you sound more qualified and prepared for the job than the other candidates who did not prepare properly for the interview.A good way to ensure you sound more prepared than others on your engineer resume summary is to research the company and be familiar with their product. By knowing more about their product line, you will have a better understanding of how to answer any questions that may be asked during the interview.If you do not have the time to research the company, it is still important to properly prepare for a software engineer resume summary. The key is to prepare enough information that when the interviewer asks you a question, you have something to say, but not so much that it becomes a rambling conversation with the interviewer.

Pain and enthusiasm - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Pain and enthusiasm - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Yesterday at the Banff film festival I saw Crossing the Ice an excellent documentary about two Australians who attempt the first unsupported walk to the South Pole and back. They have no previous arctic experience and though they prepare thoroughly, they still end up battling cold, hunger, physical problems, storms and much, much more. But through it all, they had one secret weapon, which one expert described as ludicrous levels of enthusiasm. Yes, theyre in pain. Yes, theyre behind schedule almost from the start. But they maintain that enthusiasm much of the time under unbearable conditions. Im not going to give away the ending just find a way to see it somehow. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Things to Outsource in Your Small Business

Things to Outsource in Your Small Business After you’ve been running your business for a while, you might find you have less and less time to complete all the jobs that you ideally want to get done. If you’re making enough money or have a service, you can swap for another service you might like to consider outsourcing some of the jobs that you find eat into the time that you can spend on the business. Let’s take a look at some places where you will get the biggest bang for your buck. Virtual assistants are amazing organization wizards. Anything that you think you dont have time for they are masters at. If you manage to hire a good one, you will find that it is more like having two of yourself working within the business to tackle the general running and even some extra things on top. Some of the things that they can manage are: 1. Social media management 2. Emails 3. Research 4. Data input 5. Travel booking and arranging When it comes to customer service, you might find that over time you don’t actually have time to handle everything yourself, and it won’t really fall into the hands of your virtual assistant either. You’re going to want to outsource to a specialist in online computers and communications, they are, after all, trained to do this. When it comes to customer service, you need to have the highest standard you can afford. Accounting, it is one of those things that many can manage in the first few years. The outgoings and income aren’t too hard to maintain and keep track of. As you grow, there will be more things that you can expense and other areas that a qualified accountant can help you with. They aren’t particularly expensive, and what they can save you each year in taxes they are more than worth their weight in gold. While your amazing virtual assistant can, of course, do a large portion of the sales and marketing using your social media channels, it is in your best interest to either get hands-on and learn to do it yourself or hire a freelancer who specialises in social media for a company of your size or in your sector. You can use sites like Upwork, People Per Hour or Fiverr to find someone capable and well within your budget. If you’d like to manage the platforms that they use and the access they would have to those platforms, then you’re going to be looking for a combination of LastPass and Buffer, Social Oomph or Hootsuite. This will allow them access to all of your accounts without having the passwords. Lighten your load when it comes to data and ‘outsource’ as much as you can into a cloud network. The cloud will mean that you never have to work in one place, and nor do any of the people that you choose to hire. When it comes to running your business, you want to give yourself as much time as you can to work on it and not in it. Getting bogged down with things that eat into your time should be viewed as money which you could have earned.