Career Change

Whatever your dream job, the problem is often: "How do I get from where I am now to where I want to be?" And within that question are many more, such as: Do I need career training before I can move to a different field? Should I get a temp job? I'd like to become my own boss, but what could I do? The aim of this site is to help you find the answers, whatever your current situation.

Finding a new career is a big task and so you need to spend time researching your options.

So, if you feel trapped in a job, long to set up your own business, are desperate to make money, or need a change but have no idea what you really want to do, stay with us and we'll help you find a way forward.

One of the great myths of our society is that human beings know what they want to do when they grow up. With a very few exceptions, this just isn't true. How can you know what a job is like until you try it? And then it's often too late, or feels that way, if you've spent years and thousands of pounds studying or training.

Although some people may get the job title right, the dream job turns out to be a nightmare.They would love the work, if only they were doing what they were trained to do.

There are countless examples: teachers spending more time discipling pupils and doing admin than teaching; GPs with only a couple of minutes per patient; and jobs in caring and advice-related fields, which are driven by targets, rather than meaningful outcomes.

Often we just drift into a job, under pressure from parents or teachers to "do something sensible" or "get a real job", in the absence of any real careers advice, or we take anything we can find just to pay the bills and before we know it, we've been there for 20 years. And after so long in a boring job, making a career change can be a scary prospect, even though we really want to do it.

On the other hand, many people start out in a career which challenges and inspires them, but have a change of heart in midlife because they wish to create a better work life balance. The desire for career change can also be the result of outgrowing your original passion. After all, you probably don't wear the same type of clothes your wore in your 20s once you reach your 40s or 50s. So your taste in careers could well have changed as well.

Career Change Ideas

Change is possible, whatever age you are!

Before considering the alternatives open to you, you need to take a close look at your present situation and do your own mini career assessment, by asking yourself:

• How did I get here? 

• What has kept me in this job? 

So grab a coffee, pen and paper 

• Starting from when you left school , make a list of the steps that led to your present job and note why you took them. 

Be honest - no-one else is going to read this. So don't kid yourself with "it was a great opportunity to learn new skills" if the truth is "I needed the money!".

Don't beat yourself up if you have taken jobs just because you needed money and then lived to regret your decision. Simply notice the fact that you did it. (Of course, the job may well have been presented as a great opportunity, but turned out to be a huge disappointment.) If you want to make the right career change, you have to start out by being honest to yourself.

On this site, we'll help you to identify the right kind of work to bring you job satisfaction and help you find the route to take you there. We'll look at setting up a home business, making money online, flexible ways of working and different fields of employment.

The way in which we approach careers themselves is also undergoing change, in fact, changing career is now so common that it is expected rather than frowned upon as it might have been in the past.

Ok, so you know you want a new career - what's the next step? Go to the Navigation Bar on the right and make your choice:

• Dream Job will help you find career ideas at any age, this will give you helpful tips to enable you to decide what you want to do. 

• Or if you'd like some  ideas, try New Careers. 

• Alternative options which might appeal to you are Telecommuting Careers, which allow you to remain employed, but to work at home and Self-Employment where you set up your own small business, working either at home or in your own commercial premises.

• If you want a ready made plan, try watching our video:6 steps to Midlife Career Change. 

Cloud photo by www.FreeStockPhotos.com