What To Do If You Feel Like You’re in the Wrong Job
It can be demoralizing to wake up every morning, feeling like you have made a mistake in your career. Even when we pursue work we expected to love, we can still find ourselves questioning our choices.
If you are thinking it might be time for a career change, you are not alone! Often, disappointment is useful information for navigating an evolving career. Here are some ways to move from dread and unhappiness to clarity and change!
Self Reflection
Anytime you’re feeling unhappy at work, a good dose of self reflection is key. Do yourself a favor and steer clear of regimented personality tests that leave you with clear but unactionable outputs. The best kind of self reflection is to dig deep, ask yourself tough questions and reflect on the more challenging situations you’ve encountered.
Journaling and free writing is a great way to get some thoughts down on paper. Give yourself permission to just write, and once you have some content, see what kinds of values and themes emerge from your reflections. You can check out some sample writing prompts here.
Seek Feedback
This is absolutely the right time to seek feedback and insights from mentors and trusted friends and colleagues. If you don’t have a mentor, good friends and colleagues, whose judgement you trust, will be more than sufficient! The goal is to have those who know you well shed some light on your strengths and potential opportunities for you.
This is something that we’re proud to offer as part of our new community, Work Wonders & Co. With access to monthly co-working and Office Hours, you’ll never have to figure everything out on your own!
Explore Your Options
Career exploration doesn’t have to feel like an existential crisis. Once you begin to clarify what you are looking for, you might even be closer than you think.
There are strategic (and fun!) exercises that Work Wonders & Co has been using with clients for nearly five years so if you need support making your career transition tangible, consider working with us one-on-one or joining us in our community.
Focus on What You’re Learning
It can feel frustrating and impossible to make a career change - but that doesn’t mean that it is! To stay motivated and positive, focus on what you’ve learned from your work so far, even if it feels like a mis-matach. Takeaways from the “wrong job” can be especially helpful. What has it taught you about what you need out of your work to have a sustainable career?
Sometimes people find that just a small shift can make a big difference. Other people make a total 180 degree change. Until you start your own career exploration process, we can’t be sure what might work for you.
Work Wonders Careers is launching a brand new community for ambitious job seekers, Work Wonders & Co. Doors open April 29th. Join us and gain access to on-demand career and job search workshops, co-working, and monthly Office Hours. Learn more and join our waitlist here.
Jenn Walker Wall writes a career advice column called #AskJUGs for JustUsGalsBos.com and is the founder of Work Wonders Coaching + Consulting. You can follow her on Twitter: @JennWalkerWall.