I like to think about people’s lives, careers, and happiness, and try to approach this big subject from new angles which are also practical angles. I hope you enjoy this post and that it maybe helps either you, or any friends who you pass it on to:
If youâre going to change your career / change how you make a living / maybe even go self employed, there are three ways you can do it, in terms of the order of events.
The main events are
- Deciding what you want to do
- Leaving your current job
- Making the new plan happenÂ
Deciding what you want to do is not easy. The challenge is to find something that:
- You love doing
- You are good at
- You can get paid for
More thoughts on this triple sweet spot here
There is also an interesting list of fifty self-employed career paths here, and not only are they possible for anyone to do but they can be done from any country in the world, so you could do them from somewhere sunny, and/or cheap to live, or a country that you love (Iâd like to shout out here for India, Italy, Thailand and Australia, my personal favourites).
And these three steps can be done in several different sequences:
The safest way:
- Decide what you want to do
- Make the new career happen
- Leave your job
Stage two could involve applying for jobs with or without your current employer knowing, or working on a self employed idea in the evenings and weekends, or maybe agreeing with your employer to work shorter hours while you build your new thing. So if the new thing doesnât happen, or takes a long time, or you discover you donât like it after all, you haven’t burned your bridges.
The only snags with this approach are that you might need more time than just evenings and weekends, and you might not have the energy to run both in parallel. Also it might affect your current job, either in lost energy or in direct competition, so you might get fired! These are the factors to consider.
The middle way:
- Decide what you want to do
- Leave your job
- Make the new career happen
If you have a little bit of money saved up, or a partner who can support you, then it may work better, once you have your plan, to leave your job and then work on finding a new one or setting up your business idea.
This might be essential if you need to work full time, or move, perhaps even to a new country, for your new business. Suppose you decide to emigrate to Australia, this option would probably have to be the order of events.
The most risky âfull commitmentâ way:
- Leave your job
- Decide what you want to do
- Make the new career happen
There is an argument that youâll never really get out of your comfort zone and change your life unless you make yourself do it. Itâs hard to even think about options, let alone make them happen, if you have a stressful and time consuming job.
And if your current job is not making you happy, “What are you waiting for, just quit and then you WILL find a way”. This is pretty risky! But again, if you do have a partner who earns enough to support you both then itâs certainly viable.
And I can certainly say that a couple of times in my life Iâve been made redundant, and this has forced me to follow this third sequence – I had to have a think about my future and then make it happen, and it was a good process, it worked well, and I have no regrets.
A final thought on the âMaking it happenâ stage:
- Selling
- Building
or
- Building
- Selling
You have two options for this, either to sell it and then build it, or build it and then sell it. So for example I could prepare a new training course and then market it, maybe discovering that nobody wants it and Iâve wasted all that effort, or that the customers want it to be different to the way Iâve designed it – or I could advertise it and if I get demand then I could quickly write it – providing the customers didnât mind waiting and providing that I could create it quickly enough. You can see that both have their logistical issues!
Are you more prone to making things and never getting around to selling them, or are you more prone to finding demand for things and then never getting around to doing them? Whatâs the best way to get yourself to do both halves of the âmaking it happenâ job?
So there we are, quite a few options but I hope this analysis will help you to make any changes that you want to make to your life in the most effective way.
Onwards and upwards!
Chris
PS details of my story here
paupertoprincess says
I’m all about the risky option! If you can build up a bit of a financial buffer then I think making the leap is by far the best way to achieve your goals.