Blog Post 9: The Top 5 Career Change Fears and How To Handle Them
Can you guess what the top reason is for people not changing careers?
You probably can.
It’s the same reason that most people don’t make changes in their lives.
It’s because they are afraid.
Afraid of the unknown, afraid of failure, afraid of what other people think.
We are so afraid that we stop ourselves from making a change, even when we are unhappy or feel unsatisfied with our current situation.
We have one life (that we know of for certain) and we waste it.
We do work that we are not passionate about, we let life happen to us rather than create the life and experience that we truly want.
Today I want to talk about the top 5 career change fears I see and provide some strategies and tools for how to handle them.
Fear of Failure
Most people are afraid of failing. But what does ‘failing’ actually mean?
Failure is defined as “the omission of an expected or required action.”
If you think about that definition, failure just means we didn’t meet our expectations. This shouldn’t be such a big deal, something just didn’t turn out the way we expected. But we then avoid doing that thing because we are scared of our own reaction to failing, even though we have complete control over how we react to that perceived ‘failure’.
We can choose what we make it mean. We can make it mean that we are a terrible person, or we can choose to make it mean something that better serves us. That we learnt something new. That a particular strategy didn’t work. That we are one step closer to figuring out something.
People are so afraid that they will ‘fail’ at something that they don’t end up doing that thing. But them not doing that thing means they definitely fail at it. They are just failing ahead of time.
When it comes to making a career change, people are so afraid of failing, and when I ask them what would be considered ‘failing’, they don’t even know.
The fear of failure is paralysing. It makes people stay stuck in jobs they hate and prevents them from exploring what they could truly love.
“Fear of failure kills more dreams than failure ever will” - Suzy Kassem
To help my clients with their fear of failure, I do the following exercise with my clients.
I have my clients think about and write down all of the worst case scenarios that they can think of. Then, alongside each scenario, I get them to write down what they can do to minimise the likelihood of that thing happening, and what actions they could take to mitigate that risk. Then I get them to rate from 1-5 the likelihood of that thing happening.
This exercise helps them put their fear of failure into perspective and realise that the worst case outcomes are either unlikely or completely manageable.
2. Fear of what others think
Often it’s not only a fear of failing, but also a fear of what others think, and their opinions of you making a career change that will hold you back.
There is no upside to fearing what others think of you because no matter what you do, people will think however they want to think about you.
To overcome your fear of what others think, it’s important to ask yourself the following:
Why are you thinking of changing careers? Remember your why.
What do you really want?
What do you want to be remembered for?
What would you do if you weren’t afraid of being judged?
Remember that you are the one living your life, no one else is. Care what you think about your career change. Yours is the only opinion that matters!
3. Fear of it being ‘too late’ or you being ‘too old’
Changing careers after a certain age (or at any age) may seem ‘scary’, but it is important to know that the average age of someone changing careers is 39, and a study by American Institute for Economic Research found that the majority of older career changers are able to successfully navigate their career change.
When a client comes to me with this fear, we work together to reframe their fear by thinking about how much life knowledge and experience they have already, and how they are able to bring so many amazing qualities, attributes and skills from previous life experiences into a new career.
4. Fear of ‘wasting’ experience or education
I always say that nothing you have done is ever a waste.
Your training and experiences create a rich tapestry that make you unique. Only you have that specific blend of talents, strengths and skills.
People often fear that as a career changer you’ll need to start from the bottom, however if you do a proper inventory of your strengths and skills and identify those transferable skills you already have, you’ll be able to leverage what you have in your career change.
Everything you’ve done until now has prepared you for what is coming next.
5. Fear of uncertainty
This is an interesting one, because no one really knows with absolute certainty what tomorrow will bring, or even what will happen in an hour! However, for some reason the fear of the unknown is what keeps so many people stuck in careers they don’t enjoy and doing work that doesn’t fulfil them.
I definitely felt uncertain when I was considering becoming an entrepreneur. I had never started my own business before, however instead of letting my fear of the unknown stop me from doing something I really wanted to do, instead I embraced that uncertainty and saw it as a learning opportunity. Of course I don’t know everything about business, but I am learning something new every single day, and I’m growing and developing, not only professionally but also personally.
I’ve felt all of these fears at some point in my career changes, and so too have my clients.
Through my own journey and coaching many of my clients, I’ve learnt that every single person on this planet has at least some (if not all) of these fears. It is totally normal. It is the human experience.
I’ve found that normalising fear instead of trying to run away from it has helped me so much in going for what I really want in life. Accept that fear is part of growing. If you aren’t feeling any fear you’re stagnant, you’re not growing, you’re not evolving into the next version of yourself.
I know fear will always be there, coming along for the ride. So this is what you must do:
Notice the fear is there
Acknowledge and accept it’s there
Let it come along for the ride WHILE doing the thing you’re afraid of doing
Remember that fear is just an emotion. Nothing has actually gone wrong!
Don’t let fear stop you from living your life and achieving what you truly desire.
Love Loren
