In order to get to where you want to be in your career, you have to take risks. Taking career risks allow us to keep moving forward, otherwise, you will just stay in your current situation. However, this doesn’t mean that we should just blindly take career risks and hope that they work out. The key to taking risks that pay off is preparing for and minimizing them.
Let’s consider eight common career red flags:
- You dread getting out of bed every morning.
- Your work relationships and performance are suffering.
- You work tirelessly, but get no joy or satisfaction from it.
- You’ve started to slack off or have little to no motivation.
- You become someone else at work.
- Your job doesn’t make use of your talents.
- You spend most of your time complaining about your job.
- You regularly fantasize about quitting, being fired, or let go.
If any of these red flags apply to you, this most likely indicates that you are not currently in the right career fit. Now, think of how much happier you would be every day if you ended up in your dream job. Wouldn’t taking a risk be worth it for you to have career fulfillment instead of career regrets?
(If you’d like to learn more about how to get closer to your dream job, get your free copy of our powerful briefing here!)
To prepare for taking a risk, first, you have to determine what you really want in your career. In a previous article, we talked about the importance of discovering what is fulfilling to you career-wise. However, there are other important pieces to analyze as well. We use the Ideal Career Model with our clients to help them identify what changes they may need to make to better align their career with their values. To view our trademarked Ideal Career Model, which will help you identify what you want in your ideal job, click here.
Once you have prepared for taking a risk, it’s important to minimize the risk factor and take calculated, not knee-jerk reaction, risks. For example, you may find that after you determine what would give you fulfillment, you may not need to totally change your career. You may only need to make smaller adjustments, such as taking a different position in the same company, or taking a similar position at a different company.
In the case of taking larger risks, such as a career transition, you can minimize the risk by:
- Creating a step-by-step process.
- Implementing your transition over time.
- Getting support.
We would be glad to support you as you take calculated risks to reach your career goals. Schedule a free career consultation today!
