How To Know If You Need A New Career 

Sometimes we immerse ourselves in our job, family, and friends and don’t have any time to think. Spending some time alone is key to understanding what is happening in your life. Plus, it will help you make a decision to be happier in the future. Here is how to know if your career isn’t for you anymore. 

Step Back and Analyze Yourself

If you are reading this article it is probably that you already are having some doubts about your current career. So, the first step is to step back and take some time to analyze what you are feeling. You must have an inkling as to why you are feeling unhappy with your job. But the important part is to determine the source of this unhappiness.

Ask yourself questions like: Am I having trouble with coworkers or managers? Are they giving me challenging projects? Have I learned anything new in the last year? The issues that these questions will help you identify could probably be solved by changing companies. But if you find out that your job doesn’t align with your life goals, purpose, and value, then that is a sign that you need a new career. 

You Hate When People Pop The Question

No, I’m not talking about marriage, but when you are in a career that isn’t making you happy you hate when people ask about it. It can be something simple like “how is work going?” or more complex like “what are your goals for the next five years at the company?” It doesn’t matter what they ask, you simply don’t like to talk about it. 

It comes from the feeling that your career doesn’t represent who you really are. Thus, by talking about it you feel like an impostor, like you have to put on a mask to seem like the perfect professional. If you can relate to any of the feelings I describe, then you probably need a new career if you want to be happy. 

Lack of Motivation

When you don’t like your job or career it is difficult to find the motivation to wake up and do it every morning. It is normal to not feel like doing the things you hate. But this will only get worse the more you stay in a career that doesn’t make you happy. On the other hand, if you are passionate about what you do, you will wake up every morning with energy and a good mood to continue doing it every day. 

Explore Other Options

It is hard to make a life-changing decision like changing careers when you aren’t sure of what you want. What you can do is to explore other options while you are still in your current job. That way you will have the security of a stable income while building a new life. For example, one way to do this is by trying some skills with short online courses. 

On the Internet, you can find thousands of online courses, and some of them are free. For example, maybe you’ve always wanted to be an artist. You can take a short course on Coursera or Udemy to see if you have some talent. 

Another option is that you’ve always wanted to be a programmer and are fascinated with artificial intelligence. You can look for coding bootcamps in Study Data Science. Many of those have introductory courses that give you a taste of what it’s like to be a coder. 

You can also do what is called informational interviews. This is where you contact people that have professions you are interested in and ask them for a short conversation where you can ask questions about the career. This can take little effort on your part, and you can learn more about possible career options. 

In Summary

If you lack the motivation to go to work and hate when people ask about your job, these are signs that you should step back and analyze your life. Sometimes people change and they want different things for their life. 

So, these feelings of being an impostor, not feeling challenged, and being bored, are all signs that you may need a new career to feel happy again. Stop being afraid and start exploring other options. You can check out Bootcamp Rankings to see if that could be an option.