Photo Credit: thriol via Compfight

So how do you know if you’re making the right decision? Here are 5 good reasons to change jobs.

1. You Don’t Enjoy The Work. You may have guessed this one would be on there right? If you dread getting out of bed every work day because you just don’t want to do what you’re getting paid to do, then it’s time to go. Life is too short to continue in comfortable misery when there are many options for work out there.

2. Slow Career Growth. If you’re in a job that offers little in the way of growing your career it may be time for a job change. Perhaps the skills you’re using aren’t very marketable or you’ve plateaued in the promotional career path. Whatever the reason, there is likely a time when you’ve outgrown your job. When that happens it’s time to make a move.

3. Boss and/or Team Issues. You may work for someone who you don’t like or who doesn’t like you. Or perhaps your co-workers aren’t people you enjoy being around. If it looks like you’re going to be in this environment for the foreseeable future then it may be time to do a job search. There are things you can learn and grow from in this type of situation, but if it is a sustained period you will burn out quickly.

4. Lack of Interest in the Organizational Mission. Being emotionally connected to the mission of an organization is vital to staying energized and excited about your job. If you don’t care about the mission, or worse, you disagree with the mission, it’s time to go. You’re likely disengaged with your work and you’re bringing your team, your company, and yourself down.

5. Cultural Misalignment. Take a look at the culture of the organization and determine if you seem to fit in there. You don’t want to be just like everyone else but ask yourself if the values of the organization resonate with you values. Do you like the people you work with? Do you agree with the philosophy of your leadership? If you find you are out of alignment with the culture of the company I’d recommend you begin looking elsewhere.

If you’re thinking about changing jobs and you’re experiencing any of these you’re likely making a good decision. The days of staying with one employer long term are over so it behooves you to continually evaluate your current career status against your career goals.

If your current job isn’t helping you get where you want to go then you’re on the path to getting more of the same. Take a fresh look at 1) your personality, 2) talents and skills, and 3) your values, interests, and dreams. Then you’ll be equipped to transition into the next step of your career journey.

Question: Why have you decided to change jobs in the past?

Photo Credit: Shawn Carpenter

So how do you know if it’s time to start looking for a new job? There are good reasons and bad reasons for changing jobs so here are five reasons you never want to be the primary factor when changing jobs.

1. A Title. That bigger, better, beautiful title may beckon your name and your ego. However, after about 6 months that title is still what it always was. A j-o-b. It’s work, and not all that glitters is gold. While titles may look good on a resume, if the job itself doesn’t excite you the title isn’t worth it.

2. Company Brand. While the brand of a company can be alluring, you want to make sure the company’s mission, culture, and leadership are in alignment with your personal philosophies. If you’re not in alignment with those items you won’t have the emotional connection to the bigger picture of the organization and ultimately you won’t enjoy your work.

3. Convenience. There may be a company five miles from your house or maybe there’s an opportunity down the street where you could walk to work. While this is definitely a bonus you never want this to be the only factor you consider. A short commute will never ultimately fulfill your career desires.

4. Compensation. Who would’t want more money when changing jobs? However, when this is the primary motivator for a job change you will eventually run out of excitement and energy for the actual work. When you’re in the middle of working a 50 hour week your salary isn’t usually something that meets your deepest longings.

5. Feeling Antsy. Maybe you’ve been in your current job for a few years now and you’re getting the itch to do something new and different. If you don’t know what you want to move toward, versus what you want to leave behind, you will jump from job to job in hopes of finding “the one.” You’ll be like the old U2 song, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”

Honing in on your motivation for changing jobs can be difficult when you feel ready to move on. However, taking the time to truly evaluate why you want to change jobs can mean the difference between making a wise change or a foolish change.

The good news is you’re in control of your motivation and when your reasons to make a change are strategic and thoughtful you can be confident you’ve made a good decision.

Question: What have you found to be a bad reason to change jobs?

In high school Gary was always in the auto shop classroom and never in the library. He was that guy.

Yasser Alghofily via Compfight

However, when the time came he thought he needed to go to college in order to get a good job.

He went through college hating every minute of it, wishing he could spend more time refurbishing the 1969 Chevy pickup waiting in the garage at home.

After graduating from college with a low GPA and a headache, Gary went looking for a job.

With no real direction, Gary took the first job he could get because he knew somebody who worked there and they got him the job.

Gary was pretty miserable most days. Working in a cubicle, sitting in front of a computer screen, and doing work that he was not designed to do well.

The trouble was Gary couldn’t see a way out. He thought he was on a career path for life and there were no exit doors.

Sound familiar?

Unfortunately, this is an all too common way to choose the type of work we do.

For those who don’t like what they do I’ve noticed three typical factors in how they chose their work.

• They chose work that just pays the bills and didn’t think about whether or not they liked it.  
• They chose work they thought they might be good at or other people told them they were good at doing. 
• They chose work based on the kinds of work models and industries they were exposed to and were easily available to them (i.e. corporate employee, government, manufacturing, agricultural, self-employment, etc.) 

The problem is we often choose a career based on short term needs and overlook our ability to be intentional about our careers. Trust me, I know supporting ourselves and/or a family are absolutely important needs – short term or not.

However, when it’s time to make decisions about the type of work we want, we have the pressure of short term needs combined with the lack of personal insight needed to be intentional about our career.

Like Gary, we can feel stuck in a job or career path with no hope of something better. So what do we do?

If you’re in this situation I encourage you to look at your current work as a stepping stone to something greater.

The work you hate now could be planting a seed that will blossom into enjoyable work in the future.

Take this time to look inward at who you are and pay attention to what you’ve learned about yourself with your current work situation.

You may have only discovered what you don’t like, but that is part of the process of finding your passion and ultimately finding work you love.

Gary’s now working toward moving into a career he will love. He’s grown a lot and he is more sure of what he wants to do every day. And yes you guessed it, he’ll be working with cars.

Question: How do you think most people choose their careers?

[box type=”shadow”] If You Feel Like Gary Try This Exercise: 

Write down ten things you’ve learned about yourself as a result of doing the work you’re doing now? Then go through your career history and do this for each job you’ve held.

• What types of activities energized you?
• Which activities drained you?
• What is something you’re really proud of accomplishing in your work thus far?
• Was there a time when you failed in your work? What lessons did you learn from that? [/box]

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Ultimately, choosing a career direction comes down to one thing.

Photo Credit: hobvias sudoneighm

What do you want to do?

That’s it.

You can take all the personality assessments in the world, go through tons of exercises, and work with coaches.

However, when all is said and done you have to make a choice and move toward a goal.

You may say, “but I still don’t know what I want to do”.

That may be, however, my hunch is you actually have some ideas but you’re talking yourself out of them.

These are what Howard Figlar calls your “yes, buts”.

Yes, I’d really like to do X but you see I can’t because…

The challenge is your “yes, buts” may be very legitamate.

You may have some major obstacles in your path to doing what you love to do.

Yet at some point, you need to take your “yes, buts” out, dust them off, look at them, set them on the shelf, and make a decision to find solutions to overcome them..

Sometimes your “yes, buts” have been so scary you never wanted to look at them.

I would encourage you to not only look at them but examine them to their fullest extent.

Feel the fear.

Then start doing two things.

1) Get more information on your problem. Let’s say you want to be a dentist but you don’t know how you’ll feed your family while you spend years in dental school and not go into a mountain of debt. You’re not the first person to ever face this dilemma. Find a dentist who had the same problem but overcame it. They are out there. It may take some work, but you’ll find someone you can talk to and ask how they did it. This goes for pretty much every type of career and situation you can think of.

2) Create solutions and implement them. In the previous example you may have found someone who was in the exact same position you are in now. You may discover there are certain dental schools where you can go part-time while you work or schools that offer financial assistance. Maybe you’ll need to move to a cheaper place to live for a time. Maybe you’ll decide to save up for dental school and go in 5 years. I don’t know.

It really boils down to asking yourself how bad you want something, what creative solutions will help you get there, and what cost are you willing to pay?

Nobody said this would be easy.

But you can do this.

We live in a wonderful nation. Full of freedom and opportunities.

The solutions are there if you look hard enough.

Use your creativity and your enthusiasm for a new career in this process.

Can you see it?

You’ll get there and you’ll love it.

Question: Have you ever found a solution to an obstacle in your life you never thought you’d figure out?

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Do I go to Starbucks or Peete’s?

Should I wear the blue shirt or the green shirt?

 Photo Credit: Julia Manzerova via Compfight

What about big decisions?

Decisions that have some weight to them.

Should I choose this school or that one?

Should I choose this job or that one?

We often have multiple good options to choose from.

Which is the best one?

I’m teaching a class on critical thinking next week and I want to share with you one of the tools I cover.

This tool can help us make better decisions with those bigger dilemmas we face.

You can use this tool for a variety of decisions from choosing vacation spots, to vacuum brands, to choosing the type of work you might enjoy.

The tool is called a Grid Analysis Worksheet.

Here’s how it works:

1. List all your options as row labels on the table. For example, if you are trying to choose     between laptop brands you may list Apple, Dell, Toshiba, etc.

2. List all your factors, or criteria, as column headings. Using the laptop example, factors to consider might be cost, speed, hard disk size, etc.

3. Next, give each of your factors a weight on the row labeled “Weights”. Give them a weight from 0 (no importance) to 5 (extremely important) depending on how important each factor is to you. For example, cost may be a 5, speed may be a 3, and hard disk size may be a 0. Note multiple factors can have the same weight.

4. Next, work you way across the table rows, scoring each option on each factor. Score each factor from 0 (poor) to 3 (very good). Note you don’t need to have a different score for each factor. You can score all of your options as 0 if none of them are good for a particular factor. For example, Apple may be a 0 for cost, a 3 for speed, and a 3 for hard disk size.

5. Now multiply each of the scores for your options by the weights you gave each of your factors. For example, if you gave Apple a 3 for speed you will multiple 3 by the weight you gave the factor of speed. In this case you gave speed a weight of 3. So you would multiple 3 by 3 to get a score of 9.

6. Lastly, add up the scores for each of your factors for each option. The option that scores the highest is the option you may want to consider.

If I haven’t completely lost you at this point, I hope you try using the Grid Analysis Worksheet with your next big decision. You’ll be surprised how much more confident you’ll feel about your decision when you’ve run your options through this exercise. Let me know if you try it and how it works out. I’d love to hear from you.

Question: How might you use this tool for a decision you have to make?

(Add your comment below.)

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You hate your job but right now it’s the only thing standing between you and the homeless shelter downtown.

Photo Credit: net_efekt via Compfight

You park your car, turn off the ignition and you begin to feel the zest for life being slowly drained from your inner being. Like bathwater after you pull the plug from the drain.

Sound familiar?

I hope not. However, I’m afraid it’s an all too common occurrence.

Fortunately, there are some things you can do to help yourself get through the day.

Here are six ways to survive your work day when you hate your job:

1. Know you’re not alone. The majority of American workers don’t like their jobs. According to a recent Gallup poll seventy-one percent of workers are disengaged with their jobs (HR translation: disengaged = hate their jobs). Seventy-one percent! This means when you get together with nine of your friends the odds are six of them hate their jobs too. For some reason it helps to know this.

2. Go outside. If your work environment allows you to take a break outside, do it. Something about being outside helps to calm us down. Take a walk down the street and back. If you already work outside, well, I’m not sure. Maybe go inside. The point is to change your environment even if it is only for a moment.

3. Have a friend at work. Research and polls have found those who have at least one friend at work will find their work more interesting. I must admit I’m lousy at this but I’ve seen it in action. I also think women are better at this than men (in my experience). Those who have a friend or friends at work have a built in support system every time they go to work.

4. Schedule some quiet time. I once coached a client who found he could change his attitude toward his job by scheduling times to get out of his cube. This client would take his laptop and go to the cafeteria to work and would avoid the constant interruptions associated with cube life. If you don’t have the luxury of leaving your workspace you may have to get creative. Put up caution tape around your work area, hang a sign on your back that says, “Do I look like a people person to you?” I don’t know, but do something to give yourself some much needed quiet time at work.

5. Focus on the future. This is the key to everything mentioned above. None of this will ultimately solve the root of your problem. It’s only a band aid. If you truly hate your job then you must start searching for another job or become self-employed. You can survive your workday if you know it’s only a matter of time until you’re on your way somewhere else.

6. Fake it. It does you no good to mope around co-workers. Unless they are your friend, they don’t care. They probably feel the same way. Your boss doesn’t want to see your sad face either. You’re not a victim. Remember, you make a choice every day to go to work or not. You are in control of your attitude. Smile, you’ll be surprised how it will help you survive your workday.

Now when you get to work you will at least have a plan. You may still hate your job, but you’re in control (at least a little more). Remember, this is only temporary. You’re working toward getting a new job or a new career you enjoy.

Question: What other tips do you have for surviving the day in a job you hate?

(Leave your comment below.)

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You went to school, got a job with a good company, and set yourself on a career path your parents would be proud of.

Photo Credit: Zach Klein via Compfight

Or maybe you just took the first job you could find because those student loans were coming due.

Either way, you took a job and now you hate it.

You wonder how this happened. How did you end up doing something every day that sucks the zest for life out of you?

The problem is you don’t know what to do. You don’t know what else you want to do. Even if you did know, you don’t know how to get there.

The good news is there is hope.

This problem can be resolved by doing some real soul searching and assessing three major areas in your life.

Area 1: Your Strengths and Personality

Who are you? What are you good at? If you answer those two questions accurately more than half the battle will be won. Fortunately you don’t have to figure this out on your own. There are a number of resources to help you answer these questions.

One very good and inexpensive way to determine your strengths is to use the Strengthsfinder 2.0 (not an affiliate link) assessment.

Another more comprehensive tool you can use is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI is the most reliable and validated personality assessment on the market. Most Fortune 500 companies provide the MBTI to their employees and I provide the MBTI to all of my coaching clients. I highly recommend it.

Area 2: Skills and Abilities

By the time you are 25 you have likely used hundreds of different types of skills to accomplish something. What have you noticed you are particularly good at doing? Which skills do you enjoy using the most? Is there something you would like to be able to do but have not tried?

However, just because you may be good at something doesn’t necessarily mean you enjoy using that skill. You’ll know you’re on the right career track when you find a skill you also enjoy using.

Area 3: Values, Interests, and Dreams

What is important to you? What do you find yourself doing during your non-work hours?

Some may ask you what your passion is. I say rather than search for the holy grail of passion, take a look at what you are already doing. What types of things do you find yourself drawn toward? Do you enjoy backpacking, blogging, kayaking, data analysis, talking to people, etc. Your interests are the seeds to discovering the kind of thing you would enjoy being paid to do.

Also, when we’re seven years old it’s Ok to say you want to be an astronaut but when we grow up we forget to continue dreaming. You need to tap into your inner seven year old.

What do you find yourself dreaming about during the day? Even if you think it would be irresponsible and impossible to do, the key is to allow yourself the freedom to dream about the job and the life you want.

When you put all of these components together, you should have a pretty good idea of what you would rather be doing. The next step is putting together a plan to get to where you want to go.

You’ll be saying sayonara to that job you hate in no time.

Question: When you were seven years old, what did you want to be when you grew up?

(If you liked the post [or not] leave a comment below. You’ll get a response from me.)

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The best way to open this post would be to have a meaningful story about how my ebook 5 Essential Steps to Landing Your Dream Job was inspired by the night I couldn’t sleep so I watched the J.K. Rowling episode on the Biography channel when she goes back to the apartment where she lived pre Harry Potter and breaks down in tears as she ponders how far she has come. I stayed up all night, wrote my manifesto then looked around my house and thought, “I wonder how my sunshine yellow walls will look on the Biography channel someday?” However, I’m afraid I don’t have a meaningful story like that to draw you in.

Sure, I went through a fairly dramatic and traumatic career change, sold my house, moved in with my in-laws, started a business, dissolved a business, quit three jobs in one year and eventually found my way again. But those stories will have to wait.

Right now all I have is shameless self-promotion and a passion to help you with your career journey so you enjoy what you do for work every day.

My ebook 5 Essential Steps to Landing Your Dream Job is available for free download when you sign up for my newsletter. So if you’ve ever asked yourself the following questions this ebook might be helpful for you:

What do I want to be when I grow up?
Which kinds of careers will I find meaningful?
How do I get through the job search process?

If you download the ebook please email me your feedback on the book or leave a comment below. I’d love to know what you think, good or bad.

Oh, one last thing. What types of topics related to the world of work and your career would you like to see featured on my blog?

Comment below. Thanks!