Planning: Key to Making Successful Midlife Career Change
For most people it is only during midlife that they recognize the futility of their continuing with their current career. During the initial stages of one’s career, high salaries and dreams of making it to the top dominate career decisions. This however undergoes radical change during the later part of one’s life.
Many surveys around the world reveal that people in their middle age prefer job satisfaction over other considerations. But, for many people, making a midlife career change is fraught with dangers, or so they feel. However, that need not necessarily hold back people from switching careers.
Believe You Can
With a fine tuned plan, anyone can choose their dream career and make it come true. Believe; it is within reach of most aspirants to bring about the changes they want and most education and acquired skills have multiple application. Big corporations and even budding start up companies these days are not particularly obsessed with industry-specific experience in their decision to hire.
Skill Sets are Transportable
Employers very well know that practical experiences gained can be transported across different job responsibilities. This is particularly true of professions in which interpersonal skills and abilities to communicate clearly form the backbone of success. A quality inspector, for example, can easily become a good sales executive. This concept though may not apply to someone involved in technical pursuits.
Planning is Central to Success
The key to making this transition smooth and painless is in your ability to acquiring new skill or getting trained for the new role. There are no dearths for special training institutes that can help one acquire new skills, and you can join one of them to make your dream come true.
Here is what you will have to do to prepare yourself.
• Preparing yourself mentally is important. Inspirations can come from many sources and the best sources are those who have made it happen. Talk to people who have switched career during their later part of life. When you are inspired, you feel more energetic and confident about your abilities. Confidence is central to your success and you cannot deny it.
• Be realistic in your new endeavour. It is not uncommon to get carried away by successes you see around you; they may be the result of fortunate situations which can be evasive to your own. If you had a rosy picture about a particular profession, keep it aside and be prepared to see the other side of the coin – the path may be full of thorns.
• Reduce your thoughts into writing on a piece of paper and read it as often as you can. Human memory is short lived and it is easy to be lost in wilderness. By writing down your thoughts and the changes you want, everything becomes crystal clear to you and your chances of going astray are reduced. When you write your plans, make each step as small as possible and achievable.
• Form a network before you delve into achieving your ambition. If you have been for too long in your current profession, chances are you are out of touch with the world outside. Forming a network in your future career is not really a difficult task, and all it takes is being a little tech savvy. The first place to try is the social media network. You get what you want, and for free.
