There are many aspects of life that can feel essential to us. Relationships and pastimes are certainly two of the most important – but the third will always be your career. We spend such a long time in the working world (around 45-50 years, in fact!), that it’s important to make sure that we make the right career choices. If you’re contemplating a change, you may find that focusing on these five key areas can help you to make the right decision.
What You Want to Do
First of all, if you know that you’re considering other paths, it’s safe to say that you’re looking for a change for a reason. So before you jump into making decisions, it’s important to spend a little bit of time working out what you’d like to do. Consider why you’re not happy with your career path and the main points you’d like to change. It could be the working environment, benefits, or even the type of work you do – either way, knowing what matters the most to you is essential.
Your Lifestyle
Adding on to the previous point, as you’re working out what you’d like to do, you will need to consider your lifestyle. This could be your current lifestyle if you’re happy with it, or the lifestyle you’d like to have. After all, you spend a lot of your life working and it should really facilitate the life you want, not take away from it!
Where You’d Like to Live
Alongside that, you’ll want to think about the right location too. Maybe you’re in need of a change and you would really love to move to a new city or country. When that’s the case, you’ll want to make the location your priority. Or, if it’s a certain type of job, you might have to move to where that kind of job is most likely to be located! However, if you wish to stay where you currently live, you’ll have to be more flexible about the kinds of jobs that are available in your area.
What’s Required
Another huge area to focus on is what might be required for the job. Changing careers can often mean going into an entirely different path – but that doesn’t have to be a negative thing. You just need to do your research and be aware of what steps you need to take. If you want to move from the financial world to medicine, for example, you might need to look into medical training, a paramedic course, or the right training. Or it could be that a role is asking for a certain number of years experience. You may find that your skills and experience are transferable, so bear that in mind.
Whether it’s the Right Fit
And finally, the overall consideration you’ll want to ponder is whether or not a specific role, company, or industry is the right fit for you. There can very much be a full range of factors that go into deciding which career path is right for you. Sometimes it’s the company or environmental fit and others the work itself and what you’ll spend your time doing. So be sure to assess every option objectively on a case-by-case basis.