The Career Leap: What It Is, How It Happens, & What Keeps Us Stuck (Ep 18)
For many of us, our work is the source of our stability–both financially and emotionally. But when our work isn’t fulfilling, it’s easy to get caught in a cycle of burnout and frustration, only to end up thinking, “Something has to change.” At this point, you have two options: Stay stuck, or make your career leap.
In this first episode of Season 2, I’m chatting about the stages of making a career leap: what triggers them, how they usually play out, and what keeps us stuck. I’m sharing a bit about my own career leap and the mindset blocks I experienced along the way. I’m also giving you a little peek into what you can expect from the rest of this season.
In this episode, you’ll learn...
What you can expect in Season 2 of Leap Like Me [1:05]
Why it’s important to talk about career leaps and why we’re drawn to them [2:37]
Understanding what triggers a career leap [4:05]
What you might be feeling as you get closer to your career leap [7:30]
The “turning point” in your career leap process [11:35]
How to start taking steps towards your career leap [12:49]
Reclaiming your identity and sense of self outside of your work [13:22]
How your energy can affect your career leap and next steps [15:37]
If you’re considering your own courageous career leap, be sure to tune into this episode.
Standing at your own crossroads and ready to get clear on your direction? Apply for my Catalyst Coaching Program today!
Transcript of Episode 18: The Career Leap: What It Is, How It Happens, & What Keeps Us Stuck
[00:00:00] Now, these are so important to articulate and confront, because frankly, these emotions are what most often keep people from taking the weight, delaying them for years, keeping them stuck and miserable. And I can't adequately express how sad this is. I hate the thought of people being miserable at work if there are other options available to them. And frankly, a lot of people are miserable at work and there are other options available to them.
[00:00:33] Welcome to Leap Like Me. If you can't shake the feeling that you're not on the right path. If you feel called to change things up but don't know how to begin, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Lisa Hoashi, and my specialty is coaching people at those crossroads moments in life when you feel called to take a new direction. Sometimes that means taking a leap. I want to share practical advice and inspiration for your lips and how to keep going after your dreams in a challenging world. This season, we're talking all about career leaps. Come along for the conversation. Oh oh. Hello, everyone. I am so excited to be kicking off season two of Leap like me with this episode in our previous season, we went on a journey with everyday people who had taken a sabbatical leave this season or talking all about the lives that people make in their careers. And in this first episode, I want to do an overview and break down the anatomy of a career leap. So in case you're considering your own career, you can see where you're at in the process, what might be in store and what can help you along the way. And after you listen all the way through this episode, subscribe to hear even more stories and tips this season. I have an incredible lineup of interviews for you. You're going to hear the inside story from people who have been through this. You'll hear why they decided it was time for a leap. The obstacles that they found along the way. Internal, external, real. And imagined. Big and small. And we'll also get their advice. In between interview shows, you also get one on one shows with me. It's like one on one coaching where I break down some of these ideas and give you even more tips for how to make a career of your own, or even just improve your relationship to work overall. One last thing before we break down the why and the how of the career leap, I want to share with you why I decided to focus this season on career leap's.
[00:02:48] Career leaps are a big part of my work because the number one thing that my clients want to improve is work. They want to figure out How can I be happier at work? How can I find more meaningful work? How can I get out of this situation that's making me miserable and burned out? How can I feel like I'm making a difference? The thing is that pretty much all of us arrive at crossroads moments like these. I've been through about four of them already in my life, and I expect that I'll have many more in the future and they can be really tough. They can be confusing and scary and isolating. And so my bigger vision with these episodes is to offer some ideas, inspiration and support so that we all leave feeling more empowered about how we can improve our work lives and point our careers in a direction that really feels right for us. Today, we're going to break down the anatomy of a career leap in three different ways. We're going to talk about what typically triggers career leaps. We're going to talk about some very common feelings at the beginning of considering a career leap, and we're going to talk about the kind of typical chronological stages that people go through in a career leap. So first, let's talk about those triggers what brings on typically a career?
[00:04:11] One very common trigger is just general unhappiness, right? We've all been there or had friends who are just really unhappy at work, and often it's cumulative like it's been prolonged. It's just chronic unhappiness so that it finally ends up being, I'm miserable, I'm burnt out. Maybe I'm even starting to experience health problems, but I can't ignore anymore. I've definitely had clients, for example, who have come to work with me after they've experienced panic attacks on the job, and that's been their sign that things have got to change right. And unfortunately, this level of unhappiness and anxiety is not uncommon. Anyway, this type of unhappiness is just so pronounced that you can't ignore it any longer.
[00:04:59] Another very common trigger of a career leap is that you realize that you've been just kind of going with the flow, with your career for maybe too long. And so it's a career path where you've just kind of gone from one thing to another. It's been kind of reactive and opportunistic instead of being something that you really chose or intended to do. And so, for example, one of my clients likened his career path to having been carried along, swept along by a river current going from one thing to the next. And that's how he arrived where he was. And he never really chose the exact way. And so now that he was approaching his 50th birthday, he was thinking he would really like to choose his own career path and really do something that he had chosen for the next stage of his career.
[00:05:50] So this brings us to the final very common career Leap Trigger, which is what I call the landmark birthday, right? If the decade birthday turning 30, 40, 50, 60 and these birthdays often bring with them a sort of reckoning, getting us thinking about what are we doing right now and what would we like to do for the next 10 years or the next stage of? And these birthdays often just thinking that I want to take some steps now that really add up or really get me where I'd really like to go. There are a lot of things that come up at these birthdays and they're important to listen to and take some time out to pause. It's a great time to think about what it is that you really do want to do, and a lot of times that leads people to the realization that, whoa, the changes that I want to make, but I need to make are a lot bigger than I anticipated. It's time to leap the next thing that I want to talk about as we're looking at the anatomy of a leap, then are those feelings that you should expect at the beginning stages that you're going to start experiencing. Now these are so important to articulate and confront because frankly, these emotions are what most often keep people from taking a leap, like delaying them for years, keeping them stuck and miserable. And I can't adequately express how sad this is. I hate the thought of people being miserable at work if there are other options available to them. And frankly, a lot of people are miserable at work and there are other options available to them.
[00:07:31] So let's talk about some of these common feelings are the first one is fear. So there's a lot of different fears. One is the fear of failure that you're going to try to make a change and it's not going to work or that you'll end up in a place that's worse than you were before. There's the fear of looking bad in front of other people like that you're lost or you don't have it together. There's the fear of letting other people down or the fear that this will open you up to other people's judgment or criticism. The other thing that can make a leap really scary is a feeling of risk. So the risk of leaving what you have for something that may or may not be better and how can you know you don't know if it's worth it? And you also might have a lot of sunk cost in your current path, like hours of your efforts and labor of money and time in education or training or other experiences. And another common feeling around sleep is loneliness and isolation. So there are a lot of reasons why this can happen. A big one is that it can feel really vulnerable to admit to ourselves and to the world that things are not working, and there can be a sense of shame of like, why haven't I made this work? I should have been able to make this work. And it's hard to admit that you need a change or that you feel lost and you aren't sure what to do next. Or another feeling is that you might suspect that people around you just aren't going to get it, or they might won't support you. And so there can be moments where we tend to go inward and really try to work through it on our own. And that can all feel really lonely and like also like we're the only ones who are dealing with these questions.
[00:09:17] I just want to take the opportunity here to say, you're not alone. The other emotional element or taking the leap is that it might require you to stand up for maybe for the first time, a major life decision that you're making that you are proactively choosing. So if like that client I talked about who likened his career to being swept down a river, you've just gone from one opportunity to the next that was presented to you, and maybe you've never really had to stand up for a major career decision before. And so when you make a career move that you choose, you're going to have to explain it to others to justify it and also believe in yourself that it's possible and this might ask you to grow. And when we go from thing to thing, we can always justify our path by saying, Oh, that just happened to me, you know, we don't really have to own it, but when we choose it, then we have to own it. There's real power to that, and it can also be daunting. So know that that growth also might be part of the journey. Having heard about all these messy emotions, it's really easy to understand that these types of leaps are not for the faint hearted. Right? Don't forget, though, about the amazing potential of leaps for a really big payoff. Now, let's break down a typical leap into its common stages. It's different for everyone, but there is a general pattern that I see and remember. I'm a coach, so I hear what everyone is doing and thinking behind the scenes.
[00:10:53] All right, so here's stage one. This is usually that stage where you're having increasing unhappiness and these repeated and more intense thoughts of like, I've got to make a change. I've got to do something. Something needs to change. And this stage could even lead to what I think of as the broken record stage. These thoughts go around and around in your. Like a broken record, and even externally, you might feel like a broken record to other people because your partner and your best friends and other people close to you are tired of hearing you say, but you need to make a change. I'm laughing because I've been there, but you're not doing anything about it yet yet.
[00:11:36] So stage two something happens, something that makes you decide you have got to do it. You cannot avoid this anymore. You've got to take action. And this is the turning point generally. Maybe something happens at work that really made you go, I'm done. Maybe you got a health diagnosis that is a wake up call. Whatever it is, and there actually might be more than one. It makes you realize it's time.
[00:12:03] Stage three, you start taking some steps and it could be a big step, like marching into your boss's office and saying, I quit. Sometimes it's that, but many times, and especially when someone is choosing their own new direction. It starts out as small steps behind the scenes, like signing up for a beginner course in something or like hiring a coach, like having a first conversation with a mentor or someone in your field that you're curious about their job. The beautiful thing about small steps is that they start building momentum. You start to learn things to feel a bit more confident, to feel hopeful that you can do this and there is more out there for you. And that leads to stage for taking some big steps. So now you have the courage for bigger steps, like quitting your job, starting a master's program, publicly announcing your change. And again, the momentum is building and you're growing until the change you've wanted happens. Like you start a new job, you're working in a new role or field. It's happened like the thing that you've been aiming for. It's happened. The thing to remember is that it's not actually over yet.
[00:13:23] OK, stage five. Now it's time for you to actually get adjusted to your change. It's time now for your sense of identity to catch up with everything that has happened so far, and that can take some time. And it can also require some gentleness and some extra self-care. There's a lot to get used to. Stage six now is when you start to look around and be like, Oh yeah, this is better. And I feel better. I feel happier, more peaceful, more purposeful. And I can see the future now and I can see where I am going to wrap up. I just want to say I love seeing people at this final stage. I love getting emails from my clients at this stage. When people are starting to reap the benefits of their career because there are so many benefits, it can be hard to trust at the outside of a change that it's going to be all worth it.
[00:14:22] But what I hear over and over again is that if you're feeling the call for a change and you go through it even when it's tough, there's so much waiting for you on the other side. And as we move through this season of Leap like me, this is what I want to share with you. What keeps people from leaping is both logistical how to and getting through all of this stuff that goes on inside of you. So we're going to be talking about all of this when it comes to logistics, we're going to talk about how to switch industries, how to repackage your skills and rebrand yourself. How to get support and reactivate and use your network. What you should do about gaps and how to identify those gaps in skills and if you really need school. When it comes to your internal mindset and resilience, we're going to talk about how you know it's time to leave and how to manage risk, how to handle assumptions about salary and position, whether you really do need to take a pay cut or take a more junior position. How to handle the feelings around sunk cost. What helps you to boost your confidence, how to handle other people's reactions and super important. How to keep replenishing your energy. The energy that you're going to need to make it through this career transition. Because, as you likely know, sometimes job searching can feel like a second job.
[00:15:48] My end goal is that you walk away from these conversations with so many practical and inspiring ideas that you can apply to your own work life. That idea of a career leap that you've long wanted to take, I want you to know that it's totally possible. Let's just figure out how. Thank you for listening to this episode of Leap like me. There now is the time. If you're listening for the first time and you got some inspiration and ideas for your own life and work to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss new episodes and leave us a five star review. You can listen to leap like me wherever you stream your podcasts, and the video recordings are also on YouTube. Head on over to LisaHoashi.com to get the show notes, which also includes transcriptions. If you're at your own crossroads moment in life and are ready to get clear on your next direction and want to work with me as a trusted outside perspective who can guide the way, then head on over to www.lisahoashi.com/catalyst-coaching. That's a wrap for this episode. Thank you for listening, and stay tuned for more.
