In my recent Oprah Magazine, Martha Beck is working with a woman around addiction. Martha mentions something she heard from an addiction specialist she knows who likens addiction to having a nail in your foot that, rather than removing, you numb or cover the pain of the nail with addictive behaviors.

These addictive behaviors can range from over-sleeping, over-thinking, over-working to over-drinking or worse.

The pain in your foot is trying to tell you something yet, rather than change, you over-(fill-in-the-blank).

Are You Suffering from Career Change Insanity?

Which got me thinking about the oft-repeated definition of insanity-doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.

Staying in a career or job you do not love is a combination of ignoring a nail in your foot AND insanity. 

If this resonates with you then this may be what your day/week is like:

  • You get up, go to work and do what you have always done. You feel what you have always felt.

Some level of accomplishment I hope but also:

  • A limited connection to others or a bigger mission at work
  • A limited connection to yourself or your bigger mission
  • Boredom too much of the time
  • Same old, same old
  • A desire for change

And…when you allow yourself to acknowledge it…a low-level of pain in your foot that is becoming too painful to ignore.

The Steps to Removing Your Career “Nail”

Once you recognize you have been ignoring the nail in the foot you are on your way to making a change for the better.  Then follow these steps:

1.  Make a commitment to yourself and at least one other person that you will no longer ignore the nail in your foot

2.  Make a list of what your career “nail” might be made up of:

  • Less than fulfilling work
  • Toxic work environment
  • A challenging commute
  • An industry you do not believe in
  • A company mission you are not aligned with
  • A non-existent career path
  • A feeling of being under-appreciated, not seen or heard

3.  Now get out a sheet a paper and ask your nail what else it is trying to tell you. What does this nail hope for you? What message does it want to deliver?

4.  Get support to make the changes you want in 2019.

5.  And I say this not as a sales pitch but because I truly believe that this can help-join the inexpensive TAKE CHARGE session beginning on January 28th.  This is a job search readiness program so that when you are ready to take the “avoiding a job change nail” from your foot you have everything in place.

 

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