How To Change Careers - Dealing With The Fear & Transitioning Smart

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hey this is Leo for actualised org and in this quick self-help segment in about 10 minutes I am going to give you some practical tips on how to change careers alright how to change careers it's actually something that I've done and so I can resonate with what you're probably feeling if you're thinking about changing careers it's a big bold move right and you've invested so much time in your current career maybe you've invested a decade maybe more maybe just a few years I invested only one year and I was still feeling really sad about having to change and for me my story is that I was a video game designer that's something that I wanted to be since I was a kid and then when I ended up getting into that position I've gotten a really good job as a game designer but then what happened was that I wasn't really feeling it at that job and for a multitude of reasons that I can't go into here that were pretty complex I found out that that job was not right for me it didn't really suit my it didn't suit my strengths it didn't suit my my values and it didn't really give me the kind of lifestyle that I wanted and so what I did is I had to start my own business and I found that that was what was right for me but making that choice I remember very vividly sitting there standing there looking out the window in my apartment in Boston and and thinking about what it would mean if I if I left this job because I knew that if I left that job there was no coming back to this industry anymore there was no coming back to this branch of my life literally I was I felt like I was I was uh I was like a crossroads of my life and I could go either one way or the other way and I wasn't quite sure which way to go and I knew that if I made the decision to transition out of game design then well my life would be very very different for good or for bad and I would have to really grow and I was taking a pretty big risk and I didn't know how it's gonna play out so I know where you're coming from is my bottom bottom line point but as far as some practical tips for how to change careers I think in the end which you really got to do is get clear about what it is that you want out of life because once you're clear about that and that kind of very challenging life decision that we that I just talked about becomes much easier it's still challenging but it becomes much easier because it takes away some of the uncertainty when you know what you really want and for me that means number one identifying your top ten values figure out what are your top 10 values and I talked about that in some other videos that I have where I go into it at length about how to do proper values identification but you identify your top 10 values and then that allows you to use that as kind of a rubric for making decisions against so once you know your values you can ask yourself ok so if I go with the status quo with my current career is that gonna how well is that gonna fulfill in a line with my with my top values ok and then you couldn't gotta measure them and see and rank them and put numbers to them and see what comes out then you can go and see ok option B how do I think that will align with my values and even though you can't be completely sure you can you can have a pretty good guess and so that will help you that will help make make the choice in one way or the other the other thing so that that's really important the other thing is of course think about your life purpose what is it that you want to accomplish in your life what kind of impact do you want to have if you're thinking about changing careers then you're probably doing it for one of just a few reasons one is because the line of work that you're in is not providing you with the kind of lifestyle that you want that means it's not paying you enough it's not you don't feel well compensated you don't feel like you have the freedom you don't have the time you don't have the maybe creative autonomy that you want there and so you want to change in those circumstances and then the other point of course is that you're not passionate about that line of work and that you are thinking that there's something else that you're better aligned with and that what that is is that that actually a really good sign when you're feeling that even though it's scary in the moment the reason you're feeling that is because your subconscious mind is telling you that your values are not being honored in your current job right so what that means is for example that if you're working in a nine-to-five cubicle type of job and you're sensing that maybe there's more to life maybe you want to be out there and you want to do something a little bit more adventurous maybe you want to be working outdoors maybe you want to be working more with people maybe you want to be self-employed maybe you want to be a writer maybe you have some dream project that you want to be working on right if you if you've got those things but you're working this nine-to-five cubical job then your mind is gonna be telling you that it's gonna be basically was going to do is going to deliver pain to your subconscious mind and it's going to deliver pain and resistance because what you're doing is going against those values it's like you're going upstream and what you want to be doing is you want to be going downstream you want to go with the flow and the flow we're talking about here are your values and by values I mean the things that are the most important and meaningful to you in life because on a subconscious level you know that your life is short and that if you're gonna be putting hours and hours and hours of time into your career and into your job you want some sort of payoff and you want some satisfaction from that and you know deep down that you should be satisfied with your career because you are spending 40 hours a week there maybe more if you're working on a high demand job and that's gonna be 40 hours a week that's like eight hours a day that's most of your day it's a good chunk of your waking time that you're spending at your job so if you're not feeling satisfied and happy and feeling like you're being creative and you're getting everything you want out of your job and it's not the right line of work for you and you just figure that out or you're just starting to realize that it's dawning on you then you owe it to yourself to find something better because your life and your career is gonna be very long and you don't you do not want to be in that kind of a jaded position where you hate your career and you're just going there for the paycheck and you hate everybody there you don't like what you're doing you hate the world that's not a path that you want to go down so you want to change that around and you then do want to change careers you got to think about this you know you got to think about what the long-term payoffs are going to be because in the short term there's probably going to be a cost associated with changing careers and that's why you're here and you're watching this video because you're wondering is it gonna be worth the cost what is the cost going to be it's probably gonna be a cost of maybe you're gonna have to spend some time unemployed looking for a new job maybe even have to spend some time retraining yourself maybe you need to go back to school to earn the credentials or education you need to go into the new career maybe you have some sort of dream career that you have been pondering going into but you haven't really known how to go into it or your financial situation has kind of been holding you to the one that you've been at right now and or maybe your family has been pressuring you to stay on this career track when in fact you know that you really should be doing something more adventurous something that's more you and those are hard obstacles to go against right it's gonna take some some self-discovery it's gonna take some courage really and overcoming your fears and kind of standing up to them and standing up to maybe some obstacles in your life whether it's money whether it's a it's friends or family to to make that shift but what is going to be the long-term payoff of that even though there's gonna be that initial cost the long-term payoff is going to be that not only are going to be more fulfilled which is nice but you're also going to be actually in a better position to earn more money I know that for me I have some triggers and limiting beliefs about money even still after doing a lot of personal development work and for me that means that one way that I convinced myself in these kind of situations is telling myself that when I'm doing what I'm really passionate with when I make that alignment it's not only just gonna be for happiness and fulfillment sake it's gonna be actually for money's sake because I know that maybe in the short run the money is not going to be as great or it's not going to give me a big boost of money in the long run I know that when I'm aligned with what I want to be doing and I have that passion there that passion even though it sounds abstract it actually starts to manifest itself in very tangible ways when you're more passionate you're gonna be interacting with people more you're gonna be more likely to go out there and grab the sale you're gonna inspire people with your enthusiasm and then things are gonna catch on for you and you're gonna work harder and in the end because you like it you're gonna work it you're gonna enjoy it and you're gonna produce a lot of value for other people and then that value is worth something and it's gonna come back to you but you kind of have to have the faith that that's that that's gonna happen because if you're very skeptical and you're very pessimistic about it then there's no way you're gonna make that transition change you're not going to be able to make that transition you're going to be stuck here and when you're stuck here you know that you're stuck because you're succumbing to fears right you're really giving in to your fears and you're coming up with all sorts of rationalizations and justifications for why this is okay for why mediocre is okay for why not living your values is okay and that's never okay that's only okay for a certain period of time so if you have some financial obligations you have to pay off some bills some credit cards pay the electricity bill next month then sure I'm not saying that you go and quit your job right now and make a career transition what you do is you stay there and you slowly work it you don't have to transition immediately that's kind of what I did is I started my business while I was still working my nine-to-five game-design job and it took me I was pretty fortunate because I was able to get my business up within just three or four months and then I was able to really spin it off and then I was able to quit my job about six months after I intended to so that was a pretty quick transition but still recognize it's six months six months is still quite a lot a lot of time so you have to have a little bit of patience here you have to say to yourself okay let's say I'm in this position and I'm kind of stuck here right now I do need to pay my rent I don't have too much saved up maybe I don't even know exactly what I'm gonna be going into I don't even know how how that works I don't know what kind of training I need so what you got to do is you got to start the research process first of all get in touch with yourself get in touch with your values what you really want out of life once you've got a clear picture of what you want then say is that what I've got right now or is there something better okay if there's something better where is it okay it's over there how can I transition from here to there what would be the practical steps and then start doing the research this is not something that you can usually answer in the abstract this might mean you have to buy some books this might mean you have to do some research online maybe watch some videos maybe buy some training programs and then go out there start implementing this stuff so if you need more training go out there and get more training and this might be a gradual process that you do while you're your nine-to-five maybe you do this on the weekends and then as you're building up and building up and building up you're going to reach a point where you're going to feel confident enough and you're going to know that the other alternative is right for you and that you're that you're trained for it that you're gonna be able to make the transition smooth that's a lot better than just saying you know what I'm gonna quit this job and go find a new one without knowing exactly how it's gonna work because to make that kind of really radical break first of all that can get you into some financial trouble and and just it could be a little bit of a rash move but secondly you need some time to discover what you really want and there's actually probably some things that your job right now that are not quite as bad as they seem so use your current job to keep yourself on track financially use your current job to keep your family on track to to do whatever you're doing but then just start looking start looking towards the future and then start making that transition gradually you don't wanna make a big break make it gradually and then one day you'll feel confident enough to make the big break alright this is Leo I'm gonna sign it off here go ahead post me some comments I'd love to hear what you guys think about this I'm gonna cover a career transition in a lot more detail in other video articles and also on actualised org so post some comments here please like it please share it with your friends that's why I publish this content for free and then check out actualized org where I really go into a lot of the more advanced strategies about how to develop self-awareness to really find your passion in life that's what I'm passionate about is how to find your passion show you how to find it show you how to get on track with it and then how to stay on track with it there's I'll have subtle pitfalls along in all those different parts of the process and I want to help you figure all that out so check out actualise that'll work too subscribe to my newsletter for more free videos just like this you