Taking the Leap: How to prepare yourself for a big career decision

There’s no getting around it, taking the decision to change career direction – after years of working in a particular role, company and industry – is going to be scary. It means acknowledging that you’re not where you want to be. It means questioning everything you’ve believed in and worked towards all these years. And it means moving away from something that’s incredibly familiar and comfortable and diving head first into the unknown.

So even the decision to start that journey, even to entertain the idea, to start working with a coach or sign up to a programme – even that first step can be paralysing.

Now, there are lots of things that you can do to make it less scary, and I’m a big believer in taking small steps rather than that massive leap. But the decision itself is still going to be scary!

Here’s how you can prepare yourself to make that “blue pill / red pill” decision in the first place.

1. Explore why it is you want to change

The first thing to understand is what’s not working right now. You want to establish that there are real reasons for wanting to change – rather than it just being the case of a little dip that you’re going through, a bad experience or temporary low.

How long have you been feeling that you want a change? What’s driving this? What are you missing, or what do you have too much of? What are the specific aspects of your work that you would want to change? How would your life be different if you could change these things?

To check some of the common reasons why you might want to make a big career change, take a look at these ‘7 signs it’s time to re-think your career’ >>

2. Establish where you are today

Once you’ve explored your reasons for wanting to change, take some time to examine the current state of affairs. That means not just where you are in your work and career but also how you’re doing in other areas of your life.

Although you may focus in on career change as being the answer to all your woes, it may well be that there are other things going on behind the scenes. How is your health and general wellbeing? Maybe this is suffering because of your work? What about your relationships? Again, maybe your work is impacting your relationships at home, or maybe the causality is in the other direction and problems at home are affecting your work life?

Use my ‘success audit’ to evaluate where you are today in the 5L areas – live, love, learn, lead, laugh – and see if there’s something else going on, beyond the work domain >>

3. Identify the biggest gaps and focus areas

Now that you know where you are today, you want to start looking at the specific things that you want to change. If there are a lot of areas where you’re feeling dissatisfied – for example, divorce and weight gain and stress at work might come in one unpleasant package – you’ll want to prioritise and decide on where you most urgently need to focus your attention.

What do you see as the biggest gap between where you are today and where you want to be? What do you think will make the biggest difference to you right now? Where do you want to start?

For example, you might want to focus your attention on your health and get your energy levels up before you embark on a big career change. That may mean putting aside any idea of building a business or changing jobs until you’ve got into a better sleep routine, exercising regularly and getting the nutrition that you need. It may be frustrating to put things on the backburner but it’ll be more effective in the long run.

4. Come up with criteria for your move

When you’re ready to focus on your career, a great place to start is to establish criteria for your move. Rather than putting pressure on yourself to already work out the type of business, the role, the exact details of your next step, this can be a more effective way of establishing the parameters.

In terms of criteria, you want to consider your reasons for wanting to change (from point 1) and the gaps you’ve identified (from points 2 and 3). What absolutely needs to be true about any next step for you careerwise? What’s non-negotiable and what’s more ‘nice to have’? Consider the big questions – fulfilling work, making an impact, feeling more free – as well as the more practical side – hours you want to work, location, and minimum income level.

Have a look at this little video to explore alternatives and come up with your list of criteria >>

5. Recognise that there is no right decision

Finally, and this has the potential to be incredibly liberating for you:

THERE IS NO RIGHT ANSWER!

This realisation can really take the pressure off. Instead of looking to other people to validate your decisions and to give you permission to act in a certain way, and instead of spending months or years umm-ing and ahh-ing as you try to weigh up the pros and cons to find that magical solution, you can go with your gut feeling and relax in the knowledge that you simply can’t go wrong.

Read my article on this incredible life lesson here >>

So those are 5 things you can do to lay the groundwork even before you take the decision to make any kind of change, before you start taking any actions at all! Once you’re ready – once you’ve decided that, yes, you definitely want to change and you understand the reasons why – then you can start the exploration with a lot less fear and doubts.

Once you’ve reached that point, I’d encourage you to start exploring how to take your one step outside >>

Good luck!