How to Change an Unhappy Career

If you’ve lost the fire and passion for your work, don’t lose hope. There are steps you can take to achieve a more rewarding career and professional life, no matter your age or how long you’ve been in your current job.

The first step is to identify what’s making you unhappy and on the verge of quitting most days. Are you feeling underappreciated? Are you not given the resources you need to succeed in your job and frequently overworked? Is your workplace toxic or disorganized and without a mission? Do you not get along with coworkers? Has your role changed and it no longer aligns with your skills, strengths, or passions?

All of these—alone or in combination—are enough to start drafting a resignation letter. But before you hit send, consider these steps first.

Could you be happy staying where you are?

Stick with us through this thought exercise. Consider each of these options as a possible answer to your career doldrums that will require the least amount of upheaval and uncertainty in your professional and financial life.

Try a side hustle. This allows you to pursue other careers and potential streams of full-time income. Think you’d like to craft things with your hands? Open an online Etsy store and go to craft fares. Wonder if the high-stakes creativity and ingenuity of a startup is where you belong? Offer to freelance for one. You get to test drive another career, learn what it takes to succeed, and if it fits the rest of your lifestyle without fully committing and quitting your current job.

Look honestly at what other job opportunities are out there—today. It can be easy to daydream there is another job opportunity already open and waiting for you that’s better than where you’re at. But it might not be the case. See what you could apply for today. You might find you don’t have many great alternatives to your current position—or you might find your job is pretty cushy right now and make you appreciate it more.

Have a conversation with your supervisor, or others who affect your work life. If you know exactly what’s making you unhappy in your career, you can communicate to your managers and others what they can do to help.

Seek career counseling. Perhaps what you do is still your passion, but other factors—like lack of advancement, communication style of your manager, etc.—are what’s making you unhappy. Consider working with a professional coach to help you devise a plan to turn things around or possibly move within the company.

If a career change is what you need

You can make critical changes in your career to transform it into something more meaningful, more enjoyable, and financially successful.

Get perspective on you. This includes who you are now, what you’re capable of, what you want to become capable of in the future, and your values and priorities. If you’re going to make a big (and sometimes scary) leap in your career, you need to know what you’ll give up everything for. This deep introspection might have been missing when you took up your current job/career, or you’ve changed as a person and no longer align with the reasons you had to choose the career.

Catalogue what you loved, hated, and learned from each of your jobs and what you want to bring into your next role. Identify your passions, talents, and what you are continually drawn to that makes you who you are.

Let go of any thinking patterns and behaviors that hold you back. You may have limiting beliefs about yourself, your value, success, money, power etc. You can work on eradicating these wherever you are now.Taking these self-inflicted limitations with you into the future will guarantee a poor outcome.

Embrace your vision. This comes down to understanding what success and reward looks like for you in a career. It doesn’t need to match anyone else’s vision. Once you know what that looks and feels like, pursue it without apology.

Try it on. Explore the top three directions you envision for your career, and then (as much as you can), try them out. Get clear on what’s required to be successful, read everything you can, go to networking meetings with people in the field, intern, ask those active in the field what they like best and worst about their jobs, see if your personality seems to line up with successful people in the field. Try on the professional identity of this new direction.

Set milestones. Set 3-month, 6-month and 12-month goals for getting to where you want to go. This helps you track progress, measure how far is yet to go, and keep you from wasting time.