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- Derek Weston via Fast Company
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- Business·6 min to read
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How to Tell If You've Outgrown Your Career or Just Need a Small Change
ReHow to Tell If You've Outgrown Your Career or Just Need a Small Change
Career coaches and professionals say physical symptoms, energy patterns, and micro-joys can reveal whether a job change is necessary or whether smaller adjustments will do.
Many professionals reach a point where the work they once pursued with enthusiasm starts to feel hollow. The milestones are there, but the satisfaction is not. According to career advisers and people who have navigated that reckoning, the answer is not always a dramatic career change. Often, it is a matter of recognizing what the body and mind are signaling and then deciding whether the problem is the job itself or the way it is being approached.
Alexander Poulsen, a photographer based in Denmark and an ambassador for the photo-editing software Luminar, offers a case in point. At 32, he had risen quickly through the ranks as a salesperson for a security systems company. Then he began experiencing stomach pains. Multiple blood tests and doctor visits found nothing physically wrong. During a three-week vacation, he had thoughts of self-harm and a series of anxiety attacks. It was only after he was let go from his job and stumbled into photography that he experienced what it was like to enjoy making a living. He tried to return to sales three times, and upon starting a new sales position, he immediately felt the same feelings he had at his last job. He quit two hours later. With the help of a psychologist, he discovered that his physical symptoms were a manifestation of stress, and he decided to pursue photography full time.
Poulsen acknowledged that self-employment as a photographer comes with its own stress. What stood out, however, was that his work environment no longer created the stress and anxiety that his sales job had. That distinction—between stress that drains and stress that comes with work you care about—is central to the question of whether a career has been outgrown or simply needs adjustment.
Vanessa Cornell, who had a high-flying corporate career as a Goldman Sachs executive and later in hotel development, describes a similar turning point. She had her first child at 27 and ended up giving birth to five children in six years. When she explored going back to work, she realized she had spent her life meeting everyone else's expectations. «I was burning myself out trying to basically be who everyone else wanted me to be,» she said. That realization started a journey of experimenting with what she wanted to do. Today she runs two newsletters and digital communities—one around parenting, career, and midlife called Voicenotes From a Friend, and Vanessa's Stitch Club, catered to crochet enthusiasts. She spends many hours on those projects, but they do not drain her because she enjoys them and is deeply curious about them. «That energy is something that's going to drive your productivity,» she said, as well as «your success and ultimately, your happiness.»
Cornell encourages people who are unhappy at work to look for micro-joys—small elements of the job that provide satisfaction, whether it is colleagues, a particular task, or a sense of purpose. She suggests giving those aspects a fighting chance before concluding that the entire career must be abandoned. «Can you find micro-joys in your job?» she asked. «Maybe it's the colleagues you work with. Maybe it's one aspect of it. And can you give it a fighting chance?» Looking for evidence of joy, she said, allows people to find things they are good at and that light them up. It also helps answer a crucial question: «Can I make myself inside of where I am? Or do I feel like this is sucking the life out of me?»
Cornell also urges people to gain clarity on their likes, dislikes, and preferences, both in work and outside of it. She noted that many people miss opportunities because those opportunities do not seem smart or prestigious enough. Her own two businesses, she said, have been «incredibly lucrative,» but she never considered them when she started her career after graduating from Harvard. When people find joy in their work, she said, «you have the stamina to keep working hard.» She added that no job is perfect every day, but there is a significant difference between having to do something unpleasant and feeling like you are abandoning yourself. «It's a matter of that modulation,» she said.
Circumstances and realities play a major role in what kind of change is possible. Poulsen, for example, was able to make his career transition while having access to Denmark's sickness benefit. That support meant that when he was let go from his sales job, he could take time to improve his health and figure out what changes he needed to make. Cornell noted that people need to be able to take a leap from a place where they can provide for themselves. The decision, in other words, is not only about feelings but also about the practical runway available. For those who are unhappy, the first step may be to examine physical signals, energy patterns, and small sources of joy before deciding whether to leave or to reshape the work they already have.
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