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Steven Garcia
Steven Garcia

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Career change, my thrive, what actually keeps me going.

I never thought that learning this new industry would be easy, on the contrary it’s hard, but it’s not impossible.
Let’s analyze this:
If it would be easy, everyone or at least a greater number of people would be doing it right?
I’m not trying to get off topic here but let’s think about something for a minute…
The number of high school or college friends we stay in touch with is very small, maybe even zero, so it is safe to say that most socialism that we introduce in our lives are from family, and work colleagues. Which then leads to some of us starting our new careers and possibly spending more time with our co-workers than even our own families. Mind you, on most days the time spent with our family is not what we would label as “quality-time”, think about it, we get home from work, at times exhausted, and all that is left is perhaps 3 or 4 hours before you go to rest if that. Now, the reason why I’m bringing this up is to highlight the fact that we surround ourselves mostly with our co-workers and when one of them decides to leave the workplace most likely is due to going to work for the competitor, relocating, retiring, or getting let go.

Due to this, it is hard for oneself to go off course and take a different path or start a new career, but if you do or even start thinking about it, you’re going to value and consider the reactions of your co-workers a lot more than you should. But let me remind you that most people don’t like the idea of change, the truth is, the typical path out of your current work field, your tenure, your co-workers themselves, the idea of change shouldn’t hold you back, it definitely should begin and end with ultimately you making the decision! After all it is your life, and no one else would be in your shoes but you.
As I am writing this, I’m having a difficult time concentrating on the content that I’m learning, new topics, exercises, answering questions, rules to learn, to also remember, when to use, when to omit, etc…Does it get frustrating at times? Yes it does! but it is, this very reason why I’m pausing that subject at the moment to write content like this, to not only remind myself of why I’m pursuing this but to encourage and motivate others that are in the same position right now or in the future when reading this.

Think about how gratifying it would be to look back a few years from now to this very moment and say to yourself “I did it!”, the feeling of accomplishment that is obtained by that would bring a lot of positivity to yourself and therefore you pay it forward to others, there is no better justifiable advice to give to someone then when you definitely have experienced it yourself. My number one reason is to be more passionable with what I do on a daily basis, then with what I used to do before for work. Here’s some food for thought; It has been over 14 months since I left my previous job, and I have lost over 16 lbs. I have more energy, which means I get to do more of the physical things I want to do, spend more time with the family and friends, get more quality sleep and put more miles on my motorcycle rather than having it collect dust in the garage simply because I didn’t have the desire to ride it.

Keeping in mind what I mentioned earlier about spending more of your day at work, having to wake up and go into a job that you dread, is not healthy either on a short or long term basis. With that being said, I advise anyone in a similar or like situation to at least commit with yourself about thinking and planning to where it is that you’d want to end up with however many years you have left in your working lifetime.

In conclusion, if you’re not happy in your current role or even with your career at all, by no means I’m saying that you should find something different to do instead, it could be very hard and depressing to even think of about “throwing so many years of experience away” as some may refer to it, but like I mentioned in the beginning it won’t be easy but don’t be afraid of making a big move! Your experience is valuable elsewhere, you owe it to yourself to figure out where it is that it belongs and if you want to challenge yourself and switch careers like me just know that it’s not impossible there will just be a few more hurdles to overcome and remember one thing, the people you currently look up to, follow or have taken advice from are in the current position or have the title you want to end up with may not have your previous knowledge. With that being said don’t belittle yourself because when you end up in their spot, that irrelevant experience and new knowledge with fresh senses can bring a lot to the table which can equal to powerful insights for that new position. Always think, just by doing this right now, you’re already ahead of those who are still contemplating on the idea of doing something different than they’re currently are. By you, moving on and advancing will be rewarding!

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