Thinking About A New Job
By Dr. Molly Barrow
Are you bored to distraction with your
current career? One tip that may help you decide on a new direction
for yourself is simply to walk around your home. Play detective and
discover yourself. Are your paintings on the wall outdoor scenes of
stallions or flying geese, yet you work in a health care facility
with few windows. Are you surrounded with photos of your
grandchildren but your job at the bank only gives you one week a
year to visit the kids? Are you playing bolero music while you cook
in a small apartment in Maine? Do you want to be an artist even
though you have a student loan bigger than your house payment for
your mathematics degree that you thought you wanted? Do you read
about fashion and work in a library?
Everyday other people pack up their
family and their belongings and move to new jobs in new locations.
Many leave the countryside in search of the excitement of the city.
Many leave the city for the tranquility of the countryside. Some
make the change, are still dissatisfied and return to where they
started. Nevertheless, they made the effort to find themselves.
After a break-up or a divorce, when the
kids leave for school or if a parent or spouse passes away, people
often want sudden change to help to alleviate their pain. Traumatic
events can shake up the stability of a once happy, satisfying life.
It is best not to make a big change if you are in the early stages
of grief or experiencing depression. Most grief is manageable after
six months to a year. That may be a better time to think more about
change.
However, if you are in good shape
emotionally and still hungry for more life than you are living, you
can make changes to enhance your situation. Enhance may mean taking
a pay cut, selling a mansion, or even working twice as hard in the
new job that you love, instead of dread.
If you are longing for a different
environment and a new way to spend your day, perhaps an adventure is
just around the corner. If you are a highly qualified and
experienced individual, you may be able to arrange a sabbatical from
your position. A sabbatical could allow you to spend a year in Spain
painting the ocean by day and serving food and drinks at night to
pay the rent. Then you can return (if you still want to) to the old
job. Could a complete shift in your world be the enrichment that
would make your present career a stepping-stone instead of a
terminal position? Can you imagine the kind of work that makes you
jump out of bed eager to get started?
Look around your home to discover your
secret desires and interests. Find the true you and make some simple
changes or big ones. You begin by believing that you deserve to be
happy while you work.
Read other articles and learn more
about Dr. Molly Barrow.
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