Why We’re So Afraid Of Career Change

We spend one-third of our day working (at least) and that’s just from when we’re in the office. The rest of the day is usually spent preparing for work.

If you love what you do, then those hours are glorious but if you don’t love the work you do, those hours are an absolute nightmare.

And for those who hate the career path they’ve chosen, they still stick with it. Through thick and thin, never admitting a desire to change their careers.

Why is wanting a career change such a taboo subject?

We can’t muster the courage to openly admit that we don’t want to keep doing what we’re doing. We’re frustrated and embarrassed that what we decided 10, 20 years ago to pursue isn’t what we want now.

I went on a 6 month sabbatical from work. I was working in audit and I was working 12–14 hour days and completely burnt out. I didn’t have a plan, I just needed a break. Everyone thought I was crazy; my parents, my friend’s friend (whom I met once for 2 hours) and my friend’s husband. They judged me without even knowing my reasons or even really knowing me.

Everyone asked me what my plan was but was it really any of their business? They told me I was making a big mistake but how do they know what I consider to be mistakes or what I think is right for me?

I guess that’s why we clam up about wanting a career change or even about wanting a break from our jobs because we’re afraid of being judged by family, friends, even strangers. But even if the external factors don’t get to us, the internal self-doubt will because we’ll think about:

• how many years we’ve spent to get to where we are
• the money we’ve “wasted” and the money we need now
• the scariness of starting from scratch
• the fact that we have no other plans

THE YEARS

We don’t want to admit to people that we’ve “wasted” so many years training and doing what we’re doing only to hate it.

Personally, I trained 4 years in school and another 2 years to get my designation. That’s 6 years just in training and then tack on another 8 years that I’ve been working after that. That’s time that’s already been spent and unfortunately, it’s not going to be granted back to us.

Can we honestly say that we wouldn’t make the same choices if we had the chance to go back, with no knowledge of the present?

All that time spent training and being educated is what we accountants like to call a “sunk cost” — it’s already spent and can’t be recovered. Even a second ago is a sunk cost.

So rather than thinking of all the time we’ve spent in the past, maybe we should start thinking about how our time will be spent in the future if we stayed in our current careers, especially if we don’t love it or even like it.

Another term that we like to use often is “opportunity cost” — what are the opportunities that we’re giving up because we have chosen one alternative over another?

What are you potentially missing out on if you stayed in a career you hate?

A career is different than a job. A job implies a temporary state while a career has a sense of permanence to it. If we believe that our misery is permanent, what does that do to our state of mind and emotions? I’m guessing we’d be pretty miserable even when we’re outside the office.

We will always be presented with choices and, if we’re lucky, we will also be given time to pursue the different alternatives, even if we’ve already spent the past doing something else. We just need to decide if we want to sink in our past or swim to our future.

THE MONEY

There’s something about money that makes people fearful, excited, frustrated and angry all at the same time. It can give us freedom and independence while making us completely dependent on it.

When we think about switching our careers, a few things come to mind:

• the thousands of dollars we’ve spent pursuing our current path
• the money we need now to pay the bills, raise our family, and without having to give up our current lives
• the money we’d be giving up if we switched careers (we never seem to think about how much we could potentially make if we switched careers because, well, it’s unknown)
• the money we’d have to spend to learn something new

It’s hard to admit that so much of our livelihood depends on having money and that money is often a deciding factor in how we make our choices.

But think about the money that you’ve already made from our training and education. Has it already covered the cost of tuition that was paid 5, 10 years ago? What have you already achieved and earned because of that money spent? That money spent 10 years ago was not wasted. It got you to where you are today.

It’s easy to think back and regret what we spent our money and time on but how hard would it be to look back 10 years from now and feel the same way?

What about the money we need to keep up with our current life? It’s hard to think that we could live any other way. The rich can’t imagine being poor and the poor can’t imagine being rich. But what if you don’t have to give it all up just because you don’t like your job anymore?

When we think about a career shift, we tend to think that the money lost will be much more than the money gained. Money is even more on the mind when we have a family, mortgage, two cars, etc, etc. We think that once we change our careers that we’ll have to give up our worldly possessions. And maybe that’s true if we all decide to quit our jobs right here and now with no savings but that’s usually not the best plan. Sometimes taking small steps will take you further than the giant leaps (and there’s less of a possibility that you’ll fall on your face).

So think small — what are the small steps that we can take to move to a more fulfilling career and won’t have to give up our world for? Switching jobs doesn’t mean drastic steps and it definitely doesn’t mean sacrificing all the money we have with no return.

THE FEAR OF STARTING OVER

It’s human nature to think of the worst case scenario when we’re thinking of big changes or shifts to our lives; I do it all the time. I think that if I make that big leap out of everything I’ve been trained to do, I will:

• have to live in a box
• busk for change except I have no musical talent so I probably wouldn’t even make a dime a day
• become shunned by my family and friends

Think about how likely that actually is.

Even when you were a student, surviving off instant noodles, you still had a place to call your own, even if it was with two roommates.

Sometimes the worst case scenario is our current situation.

We’re not ever really starting over. If you have worked 10 years, think about the technical and interpersonal skills that you have learned; if you had even one day at a new job, think about the networking skills you learned to get you this job; if you have yet to start your career, even better since there’s no fear of having to start over, you’re already at the beginning.

The truth is, we never really have to start over. The only thing we’d really have to do is learn a new skill on top of the many skills you’ve already acquired over the years.

“Don’t be afraid to change. You may lose something good but you may gain something better” — Anonymous

You have no idea what you want to do

More than the fears of money and time wasted, the fear of not knowing what you want to do with your life if not this is the biggest fear.

The unknown is a scary place.

It’s frightening to think that you have no sense of direction when it comes to your life and even more so when you have to admit that to someone.

Admitting that you have no idea what to do with your life is like admitting you’ve made a “mistake” for years. When we open ourselves up like that, we open ourselves up to judgment that we don’t have every second of our lives planned out, not from others but from ourselves.

And that’s a tough reality to face.

But for most of us, we have hobbies and interests outside of our jobs or there’s something we’re good at, even great at. We only don’t know what else to do because we don’t believe we’re good enough to make a living off our passions and talents.

So it’s not that we have no idea what to do, we just don’t have the courage to do it…yet.

Career change is hard. Not many people have the courage to actually go through with it and end up doing something they hate until they retire.

With any major changes in our life, or the contemplation of one, small steps count and change is nothing to be afraid of.

It only means you’re growing.

This story originally appeared on Medium