3 Considerations to Make for a Career Shift
Realising that you’re not happy in your current line of work is a moment that can elicit different reactions in people. For some, it might be a moment of despair, leading them to fear that they’ve wasted years of their life. For others, it might be something of a wake-up call, something that gives them the motivation to leave and make themselves happier. What’s important to realise, is that even if your first instinct is despair, you can use that to push onwards towards a brighter result.
However, in order to make this career shift a successful one, there are some considerations that you’ll want to make right off the bat. Depending on your situations you may want to take some online courses to upgrade your skills – digital marketing courses are mostly available online and can provide some work from home income earning opportunities as well.
1. Qualifications and Education
If you have some idea of what you want to do, that’s great. However, there might be a problem. It could be that this long-term ambition of yours is something that requires a very different set of skills to what you currently have, meaning that the idea of making this shift could feel more unrealistic than you’d like. Fortunately, that doesn’t have to be the case. In the modern day, there are more ways than ever before of getting these kinds of skills and qualifications, and your choices might be more varied than you first thought.
A lot of this flexibility might come in the form of online education, which can allow you to customize your experience around your lifestyle in a way that’s much more convenient than it has been in the past, potentially curbing the costs associated with physical lessons too. If this appeals to you, then all that’s left is to find the right course for you. For those looking to wade into financial waters, cpe webinars might be what you’re looking for. Otherwise, the variety of subjects that are offered through outlets like the Open University might be able to provide an answer.
While this might have all started with a realization that you’re not happy where you currently work, you might need to hang onto that job for a while during your studies to be able to financially support yourself. This might not be what you want to hear, but the understanding that you’re preparing to move on to something better might give you the motivation you need to see it through.
2. The Skill/Enjoyment Spectrum
Before you can get to the point where you’re thinking about which qualifications you’ll need, you’ll need to decide what you want to do. If the answer is less obvious to you, you might find yourself in the long process of trying to decide what speaks to you. In the absence of a distinct calling, you might think about your own skillset. This is a good place to start, but it might neglect to consider an important part of the conversation—what you enjoy. You might have been sticking with your current job for so long because it’s all you believed that you were good at, so making a similar decision again might lead you to familiar waters.
However, you might not want to turn something that you treasure, like a hobby, into a career due to how that might negatively impact your enjoyment of that activity. Being able to undertake qualifications and education to increase your skillset gives you a lot of flexibility here, though it’s important to understand that what you enjoy as a career might not be the same as what you enjoy in your free time. Perhaps, after having spent so much time inside with your current job, for example, you want something that can have you spending more time outside for the sake of your mental health.
3. Your Personal Life
There’s also your personal life to consider amongst all of this, and if you’ve neglected this, it might be a reason why you’re so unhappy at the moment. Perhaps you feel as though the balance between your personal life and career is skewed in the favour of the latter, in which case, you might be looking for a job that places a greater emphasis on your own time. Alternatively, looking for a line of work that allows you the opportunity to work from home might give you a better sense of control.
Another option to consider here if you want to give more attention to your personal life is freelance work. While freelance work might not offer the kind of stability or benefits that regular employment can, it does put you in control of the work that you do and how you manage your time, which might be all you need to feel as though you’ve improved your work situation.
