Let’s Get REAL: Common Fears About Changing Careers
As both a trauma therapist who helps adults heal from childhood trauma and a person who has changed careers herself, I get it: changing careers can be scary. In today’s blog post, I’m going to be addressing some of the most common fears I hear from clients (and have experienced myself personally, too!).
Get your notebooks and pencils out because this post contains some reflection questions you can use to explore your fears about changing careers!
“I can’t give up the financial security of my current job in order to change careers.”
We can’t have this discussion without acknowledging that there are real systemic factors in our world that can make it incredibly challenging to make changes like this. Yes, it is a privilege to even be able to consider making a career change instead of having to focus on surviving. That is super important to acknowledge, and, I want to take this a little deeper.
Are you familiar with the concept of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? If you’re not, here’s a quick primer: we can imagine our various needs in life like a pyramid, with more survival oriented needs (like safety) at the very bottom and higher level needs (like self-actualization) at the top. From this perspective, we generally don’t have the ability to focus on higher level needs if our basic needs are not being met. If you’ve been contemplating a career change in your life, chances are that your basic needs are met - which means there’s brain space for you to focus on a higher level need like actually doing work you like.
One of my goals as a therapist is to help my clients to separate “facts from feelings” and take a good hard look at what our factual responsibilities or limitations are and which ones are more “felt” in nature. Like other areas of our life, this is a big one where our trauma can show up. If we’ve lived in scarcity or had family members who have, we may struggle to feel like we have enough money, regardless of how much we have. Has that been true for you? Additionally, historical traumas like the Great Depression introduced the concept of scarcity into many family legacies, and that may live on today even in you. Our family’s attitudes and beliefs around money can seep into our own attitudes and beliefs around money too. If no one in your family has been in the position to choose the kind of work they wanted to do, it may feel scary, unfamiliar, and even unfair that you’re in the position to make a choice. However, it doesn’t mean that you can’t or that it’s wrong for you to do what’s best for you.
Your current job or career might provide money and financial security for you, but if you think about it, there’s probably many different ways you can make the same amount of money you’re currently making (or maybe even more), some of which you’d probably LOVE and actually enjoy! The real question is: can I find a way to make due for the few years while I’ll be in transition to something else? And if you’re immediately saying “no” to that question in your head right now, I’d encourage you to think about whether that was a knee jerk reaction or if you’ve actually sat down and looked at the numbers. If it was a knee jerk reaction, I’d encourage you to shift the question in your head to “how could I make due for a few years while I’ll be in transition to something else?”. With an invitation like “how could I?”, we get to spend some time trying to figure out the puzzle instead of getting stuck in an automatic “I can’t do that”. Is it something that’s maybe not possible right this second, but maybe with some strategic budgeting or other changes (like getting a part time position while you’re in transition), it could be possible? Maybe we just need to get a little creative in how we can accomplish that in a way that takes factual limitations and responsibilities into account - but it doesn’t mean that we immediately have to give up on something that we want. We, as our authentic selves, get to decide what is worth pursuing in our lives and what is not.
I know what it’s like to feel stuck here. I always told myself that I couldn’t change careers or scale back at work to do it, when in reality, there were ways that made it feasible for me to do so - it was just scary, and involved me challenging long held beliefs that told me I wasn’t allowed to “change the rules” of life. We did have to make a financial plan. We had to cut back, live in a smaller space, and we shifted our financial priorities for a few years. I had to really do a deep dive into my own beliefs around money and what was possible for me in my life. What could be possible for you if you were allowed to “change the rules” of your life?
“Changing careers is going to be too hard - it’s going to take too long, and I can’t go back to school at my age!”
Lots of things in life are hard - including continuing to spend most of your waking hours doing something that your heart isn’t in! But I want you to ponder this question for a moment: when you say hard, do you actually mean hard, or do you mean it will be scary and uncertain?
Scary and uncertain doesn’t always = bad. It just means it’s unfamiliar! Something will always be unfamiliar until we get to know more about it. How could you take steps today to start “getting to know” the idea of a career change better? Maybe that looks like looking up classes you might take or the curriculum for a certification program to see what you’ll be learning and how long it might take. Maybe that involves spending time sitting with the idea of the new career and imagining how it might feel to do that on a daily basis. The key here is we need to familiarize ourselves with the idea in manageable bits and pieces. Safety around a new idea or concept can take time to build, so exposing ourselves to it on a regular basis in small pieces can be helpful.
Also, it’s worth saying that not every career change requires going back to school; maybe what you want to do can be accomplished by getting a certification or on the job training. Even if what you want to do requires going back to school, the time is going to pass anyway.
When I was contemplating going back to school to become a therapist, I had the choice to jump right in and get started, or wait a few years until my life was “better situated” to go back to school. I chose not to wait, and I’m so glad I made that choice. If I hadn’t, I’d still be trying to complete my requirements now. The time is going to pass anyway, so what do you want to do with it? In a few years’ time, would you rather be a few years deeper into the career or job you’re currently in, or well on your way to living a happier and more aligned life being able to do a job you love?
“What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just tolerate my job like everyone else?”
Have you ever felt this way? I know I have, and so have my clients. Maybe you’ve also been worried about what people will think, or that it’s “bad” or “selfish” or “spoiled” of you to not just be able to “do your job like everyone else”. Maybe you feel like you’re asking for too much (or being too much) for wanting to be in a job that you love everyday. We can feel like there’s something wrong with us because it may seem like everyone else around us is doing “just fine” at their job.
Thoughts like this can protect us from deeper fears and feelings that may be holding us back. If we can convince ourselves that we’re the problem, that means we get to avoid the hard and uncomfortable work of acknowledging that our current situation isn’t working for us.
From someone who has been there: there is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with wanting more out of life than to spend it on autopilot, doing a job you hate (or are barely tolerating) every single day. When it comes to careers, everyone is different - and you never know who may be secretly miserable at work, even if they aren’t saying anything about it. It is much easier to just keep trying to “tolerate” the things that aren’t working in your life - and I bet that if you’re a trauma survivor, you probably have gotten really good at learning to tolerate things that aren’t working for you.
Instead, I wonder what it would be like to listen to that voice inside that says things aren’t working for you - and what life could be like in the next 5-10 years if you actually allow yourself to follow that voice?
Ready to explore these questions together with a licensed therapist? Check out this page to learn more about how I can help support you in your career changing journey!