Making the choice to change your career

- I'm not sure which is more difficult. Finally making a decision or making a decision to stick to the decision you've made. You know what I'm talking about. You spend all of this time agonizing about whether or not you really need to make a change. You can stick it out. Your job's not that bad. You'll retire soon anyway but then you finally make the decision to get on the path to changing your career now and you wonder if you're doing the right thing. And if you haven't told anyone yet, then you can back out, right? Well, let's start by looking at how you made your decision. When working with clients who need a career change strategy we begin by reviewing all of the jobs they've had in the past. Have you done that? If not, you can make it easy by pulling out a copy of your resume and looking at the jobs you've listed there. Are those all of the jobs you've held? If you've been doing job searching correctly then you probably have a couple of resumes that don't contain all of the jobs you've ever had. Review each resume and make one list of all of your past jobs. What you're looking for in this step is the successes you've had in your career. We focus so much on the negative that sometimes we forget about the positive. The things we've done that were great. The accolades and the projects that went right. By making a comprehensive list of the things you've done you can then move on to step two, which is to review your list and ask yourself if you enjoyed the work you've done. It may seem strange, but many of us are very good at things we don't like doing and may not be as great as we think we are at things we enjoy doing. Do you hate spreadsheets, but everyone in your department keeps coming to you for help with them? Do you love marketing, but no one ever uses any of your ideas? This is important to notice because it will help you to get one step closer to a career that will keep you excited and engaged in your work for many years to come. If you take a deeper dive into your list you'll also become aware of the roles you are good at. What you're looking for is that perfect concentric circle of tasks you enjoy and are equally good at performing. With this renewed focus you can then ask yourself what type of job you'd like to do. You have spent weeks, months and maybe even years dreaming of a different career. Does that dream align with the cold hard facts that are staring you in the face? Now that you've made the decision to no longer stay stuck, what are the things you need in a career to feel fulfilled and satisfied? The only way to answer this question is to keep moving forward and be certain that a career change is the right decision for you. Understand that you will waiver. There are days that you will throw up your hands and say forget it. But I hope on those days, you will come back to this video and recall the conviction you have right now that today is the day. Today is the day you make the decision. Tomorrow you have to begin the work.