How to recognize a wrong career move

How do you know when you have made a wrong career move? Sometimes it isn’t clear at the start of a job or project that you are going in the wrong direction.

What constitutes a wrong career move?

Sometimes the wrong career move can be simply saying yes to a project or work you are not best suited to do.

How do you know if you are going the wrong direction?

For me, when I say yes but should have said no, I get an attack of anxiety. I keep thinking through the options and wonder how I am ever going to solve the problem. An example, I recently told a business client that I thought I could help her with a theme change on her website. I built the original website but as regular readers know, I turned over all of my website building to Limonade, Inc. and Raul Colon.

I thought over my options and realized that the length of time I would need to invest to help my friend out would cost me hours of time I need for my own business. I agonized over what to do and talked it over with my husband who agreed, I just needed to call and turn it down.

Amazingly, she was very understanding and we decided to leave it alone and she would check into options. Investing into websites for small business owners is always hard. Marketing investment in general is hard because you don’t know the results in advance. If you don’t pay your rent on your building, the result will be that you have no place to do business. But marketing is always hard to measure and measuring it is a job in itself. For now, she will wait.

What if you really made a wrong career move?

Identifying the right job is hard. Sometimes it is easier to stick with a job than move on to another job. All economies are hard to predict, kind of like marketing results. You can get different advice depending on who you look to for advice. Sometimes though, if you are constantly in angst before you go to work, it tells you that it is time to move on.

I made my own career move in December 2009 and I did wait too long now in retrospect. I was 53. Today I coach individuals to follow those dreams. Find the right career path for you so that when you get up in the morning you know you have made the right decision.

Life is too short to hate your work. Learn more about working with me here.