7 Ways To Deal With The Fear Of the Unknown When Switching Careers
Are you scared of switching careers? Worried about the unknown? Discouraged by “what will people think of me”? Scared of failing? Confused about how to make the desired move?
Dear friend, you are not alone. Yes, you’re not. I have been there, and according to Careershifters, 52% of people contemplating a career shift are holding back from pursuing fulfilling careers due to fear of the ‘unknown’, and 43% are afraid of failure.
So you see, no be only you waka(you’re not alone). You’re not weird or abnormal for being scared of the unknown when you want to make a career switch.
I have come to understand that for every challenge you have to go through, there is at least one person who has gone through it and they scaled out successfully either with or without scars, and you can do the same. I’m not asking you to religiously follow people’s patterns, learn from them and implement your learnings instead.
I will be sharing some of the fears and how to deal with them in the other paragraphs of this beautiful piece.
When I wrote my book, How To Make A Successful Career Switch, I forgot an important part of my career switch journey, which was dealing with the fear of the unknown. Thankfully, I had a speaking engagement recently, where the organizers asked me to talk about how to deal with the fear of the unknown when switching careers.
Realization dawned on me while I was preparing my slides, I realized I was once at this point, stuck, confused, and not knowing what to do or even how to do it. I realized that God had the whole thing planned in my journey.
I got help from people who had been through this phase at a point in their career, it helped me and it would help you as well. Before I move on, I want to briefly explain what a career switch entails so we can be on the same page.
What is a career switch?
A career switch is a process of changing from an existing career to another career, unrelated to your previous position and job experiences. This means that you are stepping into this job as a blank sheet of paper.
In this context, it also means switching from your initial course of study to a new field. It also means that all your previous job experiences are not necessarily valid and you might have to learn a new skill, acquire new knowledge, and possibly, a new mind.
You will need to reorientate your mind, process the career change, and also accept your decision and choice to ensure it is well aligned so that you can successfully carry out your decisions. People switch careers as often as they want to, and there is no shame in doing that. And of course for different reasons best known to them.
Looking at the definitions of a career switch, you would agree that it’s a decision that requires critical thinking and planning. If you are wondering how to make a career switch, you can read my thoughts on how to make a successful switch here.
For every decision, you make there are consequences or results, the same thing applies here. The consequence of making a career switch is what gave birth to the fears in our hearts, these fears include the following;
- Scared of failing
- Family and friends expectations
- Wrong career choice
- Cost of starting all over
- etc.
The fear in your head might not be included in the list above, but I assure you, it’s the same solution. “One cap fits all”.
I was scared of failing, having spent one year and some months trying to build a career as a web developer and I had no result to show for my efforts, or was it when I rejected a six-figure salary and took 5 figures instead. When I got the nudge from God to focus on my flair for writing, I was scared and wondered what if nobody reads what I wrote and I fail. What happens next? But I still stuck my feet into the water afraid, along the line, I found my way through it all.
As you progress in your career/entrepreneurship journey, the fears don’t disappear completely, they will only reduce because you decided to face them and take steps regardless.
Wondering how?
- Talk to God about your fears
Pour out your worries, fears, expectations to the Lord. He wants to hear from you. If you can rely on him to help you through your fears, then you will be able to trust people’s advice.
2. Identify your goals for switching careers
What do you want to achieve? Is it to get employed/ source of income? Is it to fulfil your purpose? Do you want to equip yourself for your bigger goal? Regardless of what your goal is, it is important that you know what you want and what you want to achieve.
The why is what will keep you through the process.
At some point, when the going gets tough, your identified goals will keep you through the process. I wanted to throw in the towel, because my passion wasn’t bringing me money yet, but I had a goal.
It is also important that you don’t map out a goal based on what you’re seeing around you, know what you want for yourself. My mentor would always say, “your process and your story is peculiar to you, own it”.
3. Know your ability, strength and interest
To fight failure, you have to get prepared. You don’t want to go to the battlefield without the necessary tools or else, your enemies will overthrow you. In fact you will fail woefully if you don’t prepare.
You should ask yourself the following questions
- What can I do?
- Which of my skills excite me enough?
- What can I do for others even if they don’t pay?
- What are my strengths?
- Will people be willing to pay me for what I can do?
You should have the answers to either of these questions if not all.
4. Plan your move
Your answer from number 3 will determine your plans. Let's assume you discovered your interest in visual design tops the list.
The next thing you want to do is research what part of the visual design you want to delve into, and how long it will take you to be proficient at it.
How many months or years do I need? What professional knowledge do i need so I can stand a chance against my contemporaries who have been on this career path ahead of me.
5. Learn, get familiar, network and volunteer
Depending on the route you’re taking to learn and acquire your new skill. Get familiar with it.
Talk about it whenever you have the chance, attend events, webinars and seminars related to your new choice of career. It will come in handy when you decide to search for jobs.
Network wide and beyond your choice, meet new people, build your net worth. Go out of your way, your comfort zone, and network with people with similar interests as yours. Aside from helping you to navigate through the waters of a new career, you also get to expose your mind and yourself to new knowledge.
Volunteering opportunity affords you the privilege to practice and sharpen both your skills and your work habits in a work environment. It gives you a fictional imagination of what your work life will be, and how to carry out your task.
6. Get a job
After learning and acquiring the new skill/experience, step out and apply for jobs.
One of the reasons you are scared of switching careers is that you’re scared of shattering the expectations of your friends and family.
They are concerned about your financial strength, so it’s normal for them to be skeptical about your decision, it’s up to you to make it worth it.
7. Talk to someone
If you’ve tried all the steps listed above, and you’re still stuck, I advise you reach out to someone who has done something similar to what you want to do and hear from them.
I’m not necessarily talking about getting a mentor. This person can be your friend, a colleague from work, someone you admire online or anyone you trust enough to give you good counsel.
If you want to talk to me, you can reach out to me on Linkedin at Christiana Olawumi
Have fun and enjoy life doing what you love!
