#16: 7 Reasons You’re Resisting a Career Change (and What to Do About It)

When it comes to creating our momentum for making a mid-career change, we face a LOT of blocks. Here are the seven most common ones I see in my work with clients:

TIME: By age 40 or 50, you’ve invested so much time in building a career that it seems utterly foolish to “throw it all away.”
EGO: You’ve worked hard to achieve your career success. Why would you want to go back to being a “beginner” again? Your ego is definitely making its presence known here.
SECURITY: The ol’ golden handcuffs. You’ve gotten so accustomed to certain material comforts that you think you couldn’t possibly enjoy life without them. Add in health insurance, as well as the established norms of a job, like how much flexibility you have to do stuff with kids, or take time when needed, and it’s easy to understand how alluring these forms of security can be.
SOCIAL PRESSURE: You hear a lot of noise about what seems safe, secure, and reasonable from loved ones. And regardless of whether their reasons are noble (they love you and want to ensure your security) or selfish (they’re secretly jealous of your liberation and want it for themselves), that “Play it safe” message is in surround-sound and it makes it hard to hear your own voice.
CONFUSION: Beach life fantasies aside, you may have spent years trying to answer the question, “What would I do if I weren’t in my current job?” Discovering your new path isn’t necessarily easy to do...even though you know you want out.
INTERNALIZED AGEISM: You might worry that you have to compete with younger, brighter people...and that you’d age out of your job. In addition, ageism is real, y’all.
THE UNKNOWN: It’s natural to fear the unknown...especially if you’re feeling desperate to make your current circumstances work.

In my own life, confusion and social pressure popped up from time to time. But I’ve also worked across several industries and for a few startups, so I’ve gained some well-earned perspective through these pivots. As I like to say, “I do the research so you don’t have to.” Today, 20 years in, I see things very differently. And I can say--unequivocally--that none of the reasons I’ve just shared are sufficient to keep you stuck in a career you hate...or even one you feel just “meh” about.

So what can you do? Well--first things first--it’s time to loosen your fear-based grip that’s taken over your mind, body, spirit, and heart when it comes to your career dreams. And you can start doing this by getting curious about your thoughts and feelings--just noticing without attaching judgment to them. My Bullshift Self-Coaching Method will help you do this. But we’re nothing if not our own worst critic, so self-compassion exercises can help here, too. Together, these two practices will help you begin to summon the courage and energy to actually make your career change. To say nothing of what it’ll do for your entire life.

But let’s move on to the main show here: cognitive reframing. That’s fancy for “you can change your thoughts”...no, really, you can. Once you’ve gotten curious about your thought process, you can begin to explore using this approach so you can change your thoughts to be more purposeful in fueling your career aspirations. To be clear, there are many mental, emotional, and behavioral approaches to doing this. Today, I’ll just cover one: reframing the way you look at the blocks that keep you in “Jo/e Midlife” status, instead of being a “Mid-Career Change Champ.”

I’ll use those same 7 reasons I mentioned earlier and share a quick reframe for you to consider. It may not apply directly to you, but you’ll see what I mean so you’re better equipped to arrive at your own reframing that can support you.

1. TIME: You might be thinking, “I just don’t have time to make this happen for me.” And this exists on both a micro and macro level. Like, in your day-to-day life, you might wonder how you’ll add career change into your responsibilities. And in a bigger way, you worry that you're running out of career time to make the change.

Here’s my tough love moment: Every minute you DON’T make the changes you desire, is a minute you spend holding yourself back from the growth and expansion that you know – deep down – that you want and need.

Plus, when you make your mid-career change toward something that better aligns with you, you get to spend every day sharing the gifts that you’ve either worked so hard to develop or naturally possess.

2. EGO: When you’re being led by your ego, you’re hinging your self-worth on externalities that’ll leave you feeling empty, sad, and lost. Outer achievements are – in the end — meaningless if they don’t resonate with your whole being. We participate in a society where titles, nice homes, cars, etc signal success -- but we don’t have to.

3. SECURITY: Yes, we all need money. But how much do you actually need to be fulfilled? More importantly, remember: how you spend your days is how you spend your life. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that security from others is a myth. Furloughs and layoffs of people in so-called “secure” jobs reminded us that we’re always at the mercy of other people’s business decisions: we could lose our paychecks for any reason, any time. Working for yourself actually provides more job security than working as an employee because you can have less risk, more control, and greater rewards, based on the business decisions you make.

4. SOCIAL PRESSURE: The pack mentality is a fear-based group-think that doesn’t support innovation, individuality, and risk. Which person do you want to be – a pack follower or the leader who takes the reins of your own life?

5. CONFUSION: Yes, it’s hard to sort out the “sounds-great!” career change ideas from those that will really make you happy. We can’t ALL open vineyards in Sonoma -- and it wouldn’t make us all uniformly happy if we could! It’s hard, but not impossible. And when you keep telling yourself you’re confused, you’re subconsciously reinforcing this idea. That’s why working with a coach like me can help you be “un-confused.” Unfused.

6. INTERNALIZED AGEISM: Similarly, you want to pay attention to how you talk to yourself about aging and catch your own biases. Remember: you have hard-earned wisdom that’s valuable, especially to you and how you can contribute to this world.

7. THE UNKNOWN: Here’s a fascinating truth – it’s ALL unknown, folks. You think you’ve got it figured out? That what you’ve created for yourself is constant and unchanging? Think again. Change is life. Life is changing. Life will serve you a steady supply of opportunities to experience full-on your own adaptability and resilience. So would you rather proactively explore a new path now that fuels your joy, or do nothing and let life continue to foist unwanted change on you?

If you’re ready for a career change--whether you already know what you want to do or you’re still kicking the can down the road--help is here. I’ve got a program to help you make it happen. Just head over to meghankrause.com to get started.

In the meantime, connect w/ me on Instagram or Facebook to share what holds you back MOST from taking action to change your career.