Timing your career change can be tricky. The urge to cut and run from work we don’t love can be tough to resist. Whether you’re changing careers by choice or necessity, here are four ways to fine-tune your timing and make a successful transition.

Feel ready, ‘or not’

Maybe you’re keen, but you don’t feel ‘ready.’ Few of us ever feel entirely ready to make a significant change. We humans are hardwired for caution. We’re equipped with an inner critic adept at putting the brakes on whenever we step out of our comfort zones.

If feeling ‘unready’ is holding you back, Marketer and trainer Sophie Cross’s sound advice on how to ‘Start before you’re ready’ may get you moving.

Once you’ve decided to begin ‘ready or not,’ determine if you have sufficient time and the brain space to start exploring your career change options.

Find time and brain space

Figuring out your career change involves much more doing than thinking. Getting off Google and exploring real world options takes time and energy in spades.

One of my first questions to potential clients is ‘how much time in your week can you commit to changing careers?’ The answer tells me how ready they are to work with me on figuring out and finding a new path.

If someone is embarking on or immersed in the kinds of sizable projects listed below, I advise them to finish that first.

Finish big stuff first

Big events, including pleasurable, life-affirming ones, absorb the energy and focus you need to change careers. They can also change your priorities and perspective on what matters and why. For example, if you’re on the brink or in the midst of:

• Moving to a new house or renovating your current one

• Getting married or separating from your partner

• Planning or packing for an extended holiday

postpone serious career change action until it’s done and dusted.

Except this ….

If you’re having a baby, start exploring new careers while you wait. Parenthood changes your life forever. But in nine months, your talents, skills, and interests will most likely remain the same. New career paths uncovered during pregnancy will still be attractive and available once your new human arrives.

Aim to be ‘drawn to’ not ‘driven from’

If you’re choosing to change careers, do what you can to create the best conditions for making a move.

If your work has lost its lustre, but you simply can’t leave yet, here are some strategies for surviving in a job that sucks.

If you’ve run the numbers and your finances can’t sustain a complete career break, maybe asking your employer for fewer or flexible hours could buy you some transition time.

Switch into survival mode, swap roles, work fewer hours, or, if possible, take a complete career break. You’ll have time and brain space to explore your options, and most importantly, you can wait to be pulled towards a career that feels right.

If the change was your choice, these tips for making a gracious exit could help protect and enhance your professional reputation and connections.

If the change wasn’t your choice, here are five ways to weather the feeling storm after losing your job.

If your job was a casualty of COVID chaos, take heart. Now is as good a time as any to change careers.

No matter what’s triggered your career change, focus, and act on the things you can control. Odds on, you’ll discover a powerful antidote to feeling anxious or desperate about how and when to move.

Need help to fine-tune your career change timing? Book a chat.

By Jo Green, Career Change Coach

I know that when you find what you love, heart and soul, your life changes. I work every day with people who are reshaping their current careers, starting new enterprises or searching for a new direction. Basically I help people who don’t like their job to figure out what to do instead!

As a Careershifters and Firework Advanced Certified Coach and experienced career changer myself, I can help you figure out what fulfilling work looks like for you.