How To Know If Changing Jobs Is The Right Decision

For years, I idea my professional calling was working in international development.

I idolized development and assist workers, imagining my time to come self running vaccination campaigns or defusing international conflicts while speaking multiple languages and traveling effectually the earth. In college, I interned for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Cyprus and the World Health Arrangement, eager to larn the ropes and make a positive touch on. And as a management consultant at McKinsey, I did everything I could to get on projects that would let me have a hand in the development and nonprofit earth.

Then, when I landed a position doing strategic planning and implementation for vaccine introductions in Due east Africa, I thought I had landed my ultimate dream job.

In reality, I hadn't.

Yes, I was doing incredibly valuable work, but most of my day-to-day involved costing out implementation in Excel spreadsheets, edifice PowerPoint decks to nowadays our arroyo to groups of officials, and dealing with various bureaucracies. While the people I worked with were phenomenal, I ultimately realized that the work really wasn't making use of my best skills and abilities. At the close of one particularly successful projection, I started to feel itchy anxiety.

Making the decision to leave that job was hard for many reasons—non the least of which was that I was walking abroad from what I had always considered my dream career and starting the next chapter essentially from scratch. Simply looking back, I knew in my gut it was the right decision. When I returned to the U.S., I began working on a minor website—a project that did make use of those skills I wanted to exist using and that eventually led to me founding The Muse. I haven't looked dorsum since.

Whether you, like me, aren't sure y'all're passionate virtually your piece of work anymore, or you're itching for a alter, pondering new opportunities, or simply wanting to try something else, I know how hard information technology is to brand a change versus staying the course that y'all've plotted for yourself. But I as well know that career paths are long and rarely linear anymore, and that if you're not feeling fulfilled in your day-to-24-hour interval, there'due south no better fourth dimension than now to consider what you might like to be doing instead.

But how do you know if it's really time to make a change? Hither are a few of the questions I asked myself when considering leaving my job. Hopefully, they will help you decide if a career motion is right for you, also.

Practice I want to do this for the next five years—or does the thought of that brand me panic?
When I look at the opportunities ahead of me at my job, am I excited—or practice I feel stressed, anxious, or bored?
Are there other roles, opportunities, projects, or clients I could work on at my current job that are interesting to me—or not?
Am I notwithstanding excited about my piece of work—or am I property onto this task because it'south what I'm used to, because it's what I idea I wanted to do, or because I'chiliad agape to brand a modify?
Does this task make use of my best skills—or am I feeling frustrated that my abilities aren't being put to good use?
Does my electric current employer value growth, learning, and new opportunities for employees—or would I have more back up elsewhere?
Is my piece of work still aligned with my values, interests, and goals—or have my needs changed over the years?

Deciding whether to stay or become is never an easy decision. But hopefully, these questions will get y'all thinking—and, one style or another, point you in the direction of your career dreams.

Disclosure: This mail service was written as part of the Academy of Phoenix Versus Program. I'm a compensated correspondent, but the thoughts and ideas are my own.

Photograph of man walking courtesy of Shutterstock.

Kathryn Minshew is the CEO & Founder of The Muse and loves helping people notice careers they really relish. She has spoken at MIT and Harvard, appeared on The TODAY Show and CNN, and contributes on career and entrepreneurship topics to the Wall Street Periodical and Harvard Business Review. Before founding The Muse, Kathryn worked on vaccine introduction in Rwanda and Malawi with the Clinton Wellness Access Initiative and was previously at the management consultancy McKinsey & Company.