Ditch Your Career Today!

Three Changes to Help Leave Behind What You Began

Looking around your work space, do you feel glad you are there? Gut reaction. Don’t think. Feel.

The space around you, did you imagine yourself here?

What is the let down from?

Could our disappointment stem from the lack luster appeal of our good job? Maybe safety and consistency are not giving us the excitability we desire. We want jobs that change the world around us at the speed of light. We want to create a personal legacy. Instead we push one important paper at a time. All of this can change and it is within your power to ditch your career today.

Here are three practices, plus a bonus challenge, to leave behind your current job and enjoy contentment in your career.

1.       Gain skills everywhere.

Work life balance trains us to segregate our career from the rest of our lives. We maintain neat little boxes labeled home, hobbies, work, and friends. But part of our individuality are the different skills we learn to perform in these various places. We fragment our identity by keeping our skills segregated. For example, you may be an expert budgeter at home with a lush savings account. Then at work, during the annual finance meeting, you keep quiet because you assume you are unqualified without a business degree.

Unaware, we often possess multiple skill toolboxes and we store our various toolboxes at the places we think are most useful.

What if you opened up all your toolboxes and condensed them into one? What if you trained yourself to heft that one toolbox around with you everywhere?

If you are a devoted reader with sharp reading comprehension, bring that to work with you. Offer to be the one in charge of going through reports to present at meetings. Maybe you are great at handling conflicts between your passive aggressive friends. Be the mediator during conference calls to increase your team’s productivity.

In turn, gather skills at work and pack them out the front door with you. Your personal journey may have some plot twists that change your career in the future. Be intentional about taking leadership training, software design skills, or power point knowledge with you.

Gather up skills for your single toolbox and keep them sharp.

2.       Work at your hobbies like you are getting paid.

I am ditching my first career right now. I work as a scientist but I want to be paid as a writer. To accomplish selling books some day in the future, I practice writing seven days a week like it is my job. To motivate myself to write and go to class and read about writing and grin and bear peer review sessions; I pretend someone is paying me.

If you picture yourself in your current career until retirement. Great! Be encouraged to gather new skills for your career to sustain the love for your job.

Think about this: Every night after work you create a beautiful floral spray for your dining table. Do not stop at, I arrange lovely flowers for me. Practice better arrangements at lower costs to teach yourself how to analyze the cost of time and resources. Arrange a wreath and time yourself to improve your dexterity when you are on the lab bench. Create and photograph colorful vases full of flowers that market well.

You are valuable and everything you do is worth something. Practice all things like you are getting paid to do them and you will boost your own value wherever you work.

3.       Train yourself to invest in your expertise.

Investing money in anything without immediate return or gratification is tough to do. We feel cheated without a reward. That is why you must train for investing. The first few times you put money towards a new skill may turn you away forever.

Start small. If you love to play softball and want to pack teamwork skills into your tool box, do not go out and purchase the best equipment and a year pass to the batting cage. First, find an intramural team that costs thirty-five dollars to join. Use old work out gear and borrow a glove from your sister.

After a season of practicing like you are getting paid as a professional softball player and becoming team captain, then call up a personal trainer and pay them to work on your swing. Pay for gym time and maybe a nice glove. Ease yourself into spending money so you do not go broke or get mad you bought something you never use. Try out the developed skills at work and enjoy the benefits of a new workplace routine.

Overtime, when you realize your personal value and the benefit of sharpening skills, paying for what you value will make sense. After months of working as a self funded writer when I look at the clock and calculate I spent six hours writing and editing, I am less hesitant to buy a new book. I value the author’s work and buying their work is an investment for myself to learn from their writing skills. The choice to buy in to my career is an easy one now.

Bonus Challenge : Bring up your new plan with your boss.

March into your manager’s office this week and tell them, “I quit. I quit being dissatisfied with my job. I want you to know I am working on loving my career. Can I tell you how?” Share with your boss what you are doing and ask them to come alongside you. An employer who truly values you and what you bring to the table will have great suggestions for you.

When I told my manager I was working my way out of being a scientist, she was stoked. She told me she wanted me to love my career and until my first novel makes it big she needs the passion and workmanship I bring to the lab ever since I started this writing. She even offered to arrange my schedule so I could attend classes and go to workshops out of state.

Ditch your career for a better one today. Our work can be designed to fulfill us. To enjoy the fruit of a healthy career gather sharp skills in your toolbox and use them to prune your work into something vibrant. Practice what you love like you get paid so your personal value is evident to you and to others. Pour resources into what you do outside of work so it can grow. See value and create value.

I hope you can dig into the three changes and bonus challenge this month. Comment below to share your passion with me so I can encourage you as you transform your career.