Is your career really the problem?

One of the things I try to establish when I see clients looking for a career change is why? What exactly are they hoping to achieve with this career change? What problems are they trying to solve? How will a career change help them? This might not always be what clients expect to dive into with career coaching, but it’s absolutely critical to understand the motivations behind the desire for change.

Motivations matter, so we need to examine them. They are also more complex than they first appear – often the reason we give for doing something isn’t the only, or actual, driving force behind the decision. There are a number of reasons why understanding our motivations is important, including trying to find out if you’re actually solving the right problem. 

The desire for career change is normally born from some form of unhappiness or dissatisfaction. Perhaps you feel bored, restless, unappreciated, grumpy, stressed or miserable at work (or if you’re really unlucky, all of the above!). It’s understandable then for people to want a change. The issue is that we could feel any or all of those things whilst we’re at work, but the problem might not actually be our work. 

Let’s say you’re having relationship issues so your homelife is stressful and bleak. Or you’ve got caring responsibilities and you’re tired and overwhelmed. Or you’ve not got much of a social life, so you’re lonely and bored. All of these situations are problems that come from outside of the workplace, but they still impact you at work. If you’re unhappy at home then you can’t just switch it off when you’re doing your job. Misery spreads. So all those niggles and annoyances you might usually overlook within your work can suddenly seem oppressive and impossible. 

We aren’t always good at identifying the origin point of our unhappiness. Thanks to subconscious patterns like avoidance and denial, we might be overlooking the actual problem in favour of one that seems easier to solve, or less emotionally loaded. Are you discontented and alone? Changing your job is probably easier than getting divorced. Feeling overworked and lost? Finding fault with your profession might feel simpler than admitting that parenting is really, really hard. Life feels a bit pointless? It’s easier to blame your job than face up to any existential dread (Argh! The inevitability of death! etc). 

I think we all do this. We blame the thing we think we can solve, make the changes we can cope with making, and then only afterwards wonder why things aren’t really any better. We don’t just do this with our careers either, I think we are all masters when it comes to solving the easy problems, rather than the real problems. If you reflect on your own life then I’m sure you can think of an occasion where you jumped on a new goal, project or resolution – only to later realise it didn’t actually solve anything important. (I certainly can!)

My favourite description of the role of a coach is that it’s our job to hold up a mirror to our clients, so they can see themselves more clearly. When it comes to understanding motivations for a career change, this clear-sightedness is crucial. Is your career really the problem, or is it something else? Before you go to all the effort of changing your job, profession or area of work, then please be sure this is the change that you really need to be making.