Career Testing For Career Changers

People change careers every day.  It's not uncommon to have as many as five careers in a lifetime. As common as career change is, it's generally very hard to do, and it can be extremely stressful on you and your family.

The good news, is that once you do get on your "Right Path," things start get a lot easier. But more on that later.

Entrepreneurs change careers by starting new and different businesses. Technical people move from design or programming into management, marketing, sales and possibly back again.  Entertainers might move from acting to singing. Some folks change industries entirely. Some people simply switch companies.

There are a few careers where career change is rare. A family medical doctor, after building a practice, will rarely make radical changes. Many attorneys find themselves in the same situation. Building a practice takes many years and the cost of switching is usually prohibitive.

Business owners, can change careers, usually by delegating the management of their ongoing business thus freeing up time to start another business.

Changing careers is not something you learned in school. To help you navigate your way through this change, CareerPlanner.com has identified several good career change books on the subject as well as providing tools and information to help you through your career change. One of the best places to start is with our Career Test which will help you identify careers that match your interests, values and strengths. Our Career Test will also show you which types of careers to avoid.

Finding Your Right Path

The most important thing to know is that your career change should put you on a path that is closer to, if not directly on, your "Right Path." In a nutshell, your Right Path has to do with your personal mission in life, and the reason you are here.  The closer you align yourself to that path, the less stress you are bound to encounter. Identifying your Right Path then becomes your top priority.

Being on the Right Path leads to greater success and career satisfaction.  When on your Right Path, obstacles will be fewer and easier to overcome. The battles you fight will at least be the right battles. Once you are on your Right Path, things will start to fall into place.

Your Right Path is like a roadmap that helps point the way forward. Without a roadmap in life, you will be like a ship without a rudder.  You will be blown this way and that. The slightest breeze will knock you off course. Without a vision of where you are supposed to go, your life will seem like a bunch of random events.

In fact, many people don't know how to change careers and many are afraid to think about it. The default position is to cast your fate to the wind and wait for life to nudge you in the right direction. Trust me, you want to plan your career, rather than leaving it in the hands of others.

The best time to start to determine what your Right Path is, is when you are safe and secure in your present job. One word of caution.  If you are sensing that you need a major career change or a major life change, please start working on it right now, for your own good and the good of your family.  Don't put off searching for your Right Path. Why...

The Giant Bungee Cord of Life

It's best to start searching for your Right Path in a gradual way while your life is still relatively stable and you still have a paycheck. An interesting thing happens if you delay searching for your Right Path.  

Picture that there is a giant rubber band attached at one end to your waist, and at the other end to the path you should be on.  The further away from your Right Path you travel the more tension builds up in the rubber band.  At some point, as you get too far off your true path that rubber band will snap you back, disrupting everything in your life. It is usually not a pleasant experience.  It may come in the form of getting laid off, getting fired, getting demoted, being reorganized, downsized, divorced etc.

Do not for one minute assume that the giant bungee cord of life will snap you back to a nice comfortable position on your Right Path.  If there was a lot of  tension in that rubber band (and in your life) you will overshoot your Right Path and continue to oscillate back and forth. 

You might be out of control for awhile, until the oscillations dampen out. If you haven't worked on identifying your Right Path, how will you recognize it as you fly by it.

What's Next?

If you are not the "Do It Yourself" type, and you think that you are way, way off your Right Path, and you are experiencing major job stress in your life, we suggest you find a professional counselor to help with the process.  Look for a local psychologist with a private practice that has experience helping people identify their true mission in life. 

Find someone with a passion and a track record for helping people with their careers and their lives.  Find someone who is deeply intuitive and highly focused on staying on their own Right Path.  These people can be very helpful.

If you are the "Do It Yourself" type when it comes to introspection and knowing yourself, we would still recommend the help of a practicing psychologist.  However, we can recommend a few excellent books to help you understand and discover your Right Path. Click here to see the Right Path resources on our reading list.

Identifying your Right Path is just part of the Career Planning Process.  After you have begun to identify your Right Path, return to the career planning process to complete the next few steps for planning your next career.  We do offer one very useful tool to help you understand what careers are right for you.  Try our Career Planning Test.