3 Keys To a Silky-Smooth Career Transition
I had you at silky-smooth, didn’t I? The fear of a rough career transition is often enough to keep you anchored in place. Even an exciting opportunity can lead you into uncharted waters.
Whether you chose your transition or it chose you, here are three keys to ride the career transition wave without wiping out.
3 Keys To a Smooth Career Transition
1. Ditch Short-Term Fixes
Short-term thinking will get you a short-term solution.
So many people focus on short-term tactics—updating their resume and scouring job boards—before they’ve gotten clear on what they actually want.
I get it. When you’re desperate to make a change, it can be tempting to skip the planning and get straight to the doing.
But what you think you’re saving in time on the front-end will bite you in your back-end when you’re stuck in a job that doesn’t align with what you want long-term.
In fact, short-term job fixes often end up recreating the same issues or unveiling unforeseen ones. So, you make another short-term jump, and the cycle repeats.
When I ask career changers what they want a year from now, people who are focused on the short-term give answers like:
I want a job
I don’t want what I have now
What do you mean a year? I’m trying to move in 6 weeks.
If the goal is to find just another job, you might succeed.
But I want you to have the job, the one that gives you the opportunities, impact, money, and recognition you deserve. The one you can see yourself grow and stretch in. Not the one you settle for because you fear that nothing better will come along.
And while it’s great to know what you don’t want, how can you possibly get what you do want if you haven’t defined it?
Short-term moves are often driven by fear and scarcity—rather than a true understanding of what will make you happy.
This career myopia tricks you into seeing only a few, limited options. But it's not the full picture.
Ask yourself:
Does this short-term move align with my longer-term career goals?
Would I still make this move if I were happy in my current situation?
Which is stronger, my desire to leave my current situation or my desire to take this opportunity?
Longer-term plans take the pressure off by creating space between your current job reality and future career vision. They release you from “I need to figure it all out NOW” mode and help you invest in career moves now that will pay dividends for years to come.
Occasionally, thoughtful short-term career moves are necessary to get you to a temporary island of much-needed relief and position you for where you want to go next.
But I urge you to not let TIME be the biggest driver of your decision-making. Would you rather get into a bad fit quicker? or take a little bit longer to make a move that really sticks?
And don’t let your medium- and long-term planning drop. Even once you land your dream job.
2. Understand Why
We just covered the importance of understanding What you want.
Understanding Why you want it—and what it will mean for you once you achieve it—is one of the most important pieces of your career roadmap.
The people I work with want a combination of autonomy, growth, money, recognition, supportive relationships, and impact.
We spend a lot of time understanding their personal Why behind those goals.
Most people assume a change (like a promotion or more money) will automatically bring a desired feeling (like more respect or security). Yet, too often it doesn’t bring the expected result.
My friend and former colleague quit his corporate job because he saw it as a roadblock to becoming an entrepreneur.
He writes, “Leaving my job did not bring me the happiness and freedom I was looking for. Asking myself [about the] "WHY" behind my goals/decisions made me realize that my full-time job was never a problem. In fact, it helped me start my business!”
He’s now pursuing parallel goals of building his business and creating a stable corporate side hustle.
Once he identified happiness and freedom as his true goals, he realized he could achieve them in a bunch of different ways, including ones with healthcare and a steady paycheck while he builds his business.
People often think that career fulfillment necessitates a complete 180 from where they are currently. If that’s what you want, go for it. But it can also be a set of pivots, tweaks, and ninja moves that don’t require massive upheaval.
Speaking of upheaval, your Why can also keep you afloat in rough waters by reminding you of what drove you to make the change in the first place.
The key to a smooth career transition starts with Why.
3. What You Focus On Is Where You End Up
You're communicating what you want in every moment and interaction. What are you saying?
During my college internship, I talked about my dream to live in Paris so much that my manager assumed I wasn’t interested in a US role. So she didn’t offer me one.
Luckily, when I finally mentioned I wanted to be hired full-time, that same manager not only hired me but snagged me an assignment in Paris.
That time, it worked in my favor, but many more times throughout my career, my words and actions undermined my own goals in spectacular ways.
I once complained to a Managing Partner so much that I lost his support for an early promotion. My big mouth swallowed up all the good work I had done.
Back to that assignment in Paris, our team was routinely asked to stop work while awaiting key management decisions. When this happened, I did what any self-respecting spoiled ingénue intent on sabotaging her career would do . . .
I traipsed through the office, dramatically proclaiming, “I have nothing to doooo!” like a lovelorn figure from a 1920’s melodrama.
I waltzed around the client site: head thrown back, one hand to my forehead, the other delicately outstretched as if clutching a dead lover's monogrammed handkerchief, bewailing my fate.
I was so busy emoting, I failed to notice the client team tucked in a back room, watching this very expensive consultant walk around saying she wasn’t doing any work.
If there’s a lesson to be learned from this, it’s that I was right to not pursue a career in the theater.
I guess the other lesson is: You are what you talk about, so make sure that’s who you want to be.
I know you’d never make such inappropriate, cringe-y mistakes. But are you truly diligent about aligning your thoughts, words, and actions with where you want to go in your career, or are you letting your fear and anxiety do the talking?
When you talk to your friends, colleagues, and higher-ups, do you speak in real terms about the opportunities you’re seeking, the value you bring to matters they care about, and the support you’d like from them? Or are you engaging in a less dramatic but equally career-limiting version of my examples?
Same goes for your actions. And before you decide you’re better off staying where you are, beware inertia. Not doing anything is still doing something, ensuring you’ll get more of what you have. And there are real costs to that.
What you focus on is where you end up. Stop devoting precious time and energy to a job you hate, a dismissive boss, or a disrespectful colleague.
Save your brainpower for getting clear on what you want instead, and steadily go after it. That’s key for a smooth career transition.
Navigating The Rough Waters Of Career Change
The truth about career change is that it’s not always smooth sailing, but that doesn't mean you have to succumb to its watery depths.
The trick is not about waiting for the oceans to calm; it's about becoming skilled at navigating whatever comes your way.
Whatever transition you’re considering, remember that all change is growth.
Our roughest transitions often turn out to be the best ones.
And the smoothest transitions are those where we choose not to fight against the wind and current but harness their power to take us where we want to go.
Take a deep breath and release the pressure. Then ride that silky-smooth career transition wave.
Ready to set sail on your career transition and need a little help getting there?
Download your free career roadmap: 4 Steps To Take Back Your Life and Design a Career with Purpose.
Author Bio:
Before becoming a coach, Caroline worked in management consulting and financial services. She's made it her mission to help people grow, contribute, and get wherever they want to go.
She’s also a tennis fanatic, aspiring Minimalist, FIRE (Financial Independence and Retire Early) enthusiast, and Aloha Spirit seeker 🤙. She loves to share stories from her unconventional life and career focused on freedom, creativity, fun, health, family, and community. If she can do it, you can, too.
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