Committing to changing your career is a big, exciting decision. So, it’s 100% normal to expect big, exciting results … fast. You’re keen to progress in leaps and bounds. You’re on high alert for that luminous lightbulb moment that magically unveils your new career.

OK, I absolutely get that you’re looking for a high-speed transition to your new career, but can we press ‘pause’ for a second?

As a career changer, you’re set to venture into unknown territory. And for sure, there are bound to be some sudden and sizable leaps forward and blinding flashes of insight and inspiration. But while you’re anticipating these high-voltage moments or catching your breath in the wake of one of them, how about covering some of the ground between you and your next career in small steps?

Why? Because a gentle, intentional, one-step-at-time approach can help you deal with the discomfort of doing things differently to change careers.

Besides that, going slowly gives you more time to spot opportunities you might miss if you zoom past, intent on arriving at your new career destination in record time.

Taking small steps to progress your career change may not sound very exciting. But there are loads of advantages to slowing the pace. Here are four of them.

1. Small steps are an antidote to analysis paralysis

Figuring out how to change careers can feel overwhelming. Maybe you’ve got a gazillion career ideas you want to explore ... but no idea where to begin.

Maybe you’ve got zero inspiration. You feel clueless and cast adrift from everything you thought you knew about who you are and what you’re good at.

Either way, feeling overwhelmed can trigger analysis paralysis – that stuck-in-your-head spin cycle that stops you in your tracks.

Your brain trawls through the same information over and over and over and over again. Unless you count ‘frustrated’ and ‘frantic’ as places to be, you get nowhere.

So how to escape?

New information is what you need! (And I don’t mean a gazillion new Google search results.)

I’m talking fresh, conversation-driven ‘data’ provided by actual humans. It’s time to look for lively, current, real-world insight into who you are and how and where you might fit in a world flush with potential career possibilities.

Here are three small steps you can take to get unstuck and gather momentum

• Go to an event, webinar, workshop, MeetUp. See what sparks your interest (more on this in a minute.)

• Chat with anyone and everyone about what they do for work, whether you’re interested in their industry or not!

• As you listen, your clever, curious brain will absorb, sort, and dissect new information. It’ll analyse and file it in career change folders like ‘follow that up’ or ‘forget that now.’

• Chat with people doing things you’re just a little bit curious about. Maybe you’ve always wondered what being a florist or UX designer would be like. Perhaps you’ve harboured a secret desire to learn to fly since you were ten. Find those people and find out more. Get that new data in!

9 More small steps towards having confident career change conversations.

2. Small steps help you stretch your comfort zone

Our comfort zone is… well, comfortable. And we don’t learn a lot there.

Career change calls for new information. And finding it means doing different and sometimes unsettling things.

It’s easy (and perfectly OK) to feel inept and ill-equipped when we edge out of our comfort zone to do the things we need to do to change careers. Step out gently (tiptoe even), and you’re less likely to tumble into the panic zone.

Like this, perhaps.

You’ve never had a conversation with someone about their career. So have a practice conversation with a friend first! Mess up with them, bumble through your questions and build your confidence and skills for having informational interviews.

Wondering if something you love doing (baking, bush walking, restoring found objects ...for example) could have career legs? Cater for a friend, write a blog that only you see, entice two of your favourite couch potatoes into nature, or showcase your restoration smarts on social media.

Small, incremental steps build your taste and tolerance for trying scary, new stuff in the same way you might increase your physical endurance by walking or running a bit further or adding more reps to your gym routine.

Besides stretching your boundaries by taking small steps, you could try one of these three ways to quit your career change comfort zone.

3. Small steps add up fast

Small steps equal small wins regardless of their tangible outcomes (contact made, meeting booked, etc). Just acting and doing that one little thing is already a win.

Sometimes, progress towards your new career can feel agonisingly slow. So, keep tabs and get perspective on how much momentum your small steps generate by noting them on a Done It List.

4. Small steps keep you flexible and adaptive

‘Map out your future – but do it in pencil.’ Vintage rocker Bon Jovi’s advice works for career change and life. Taking small steps gives you lightly drawn, erasable pencil powers.

Because even the most meticulously mapped out career change plan and pathway will have its fair share of diversions and dead ends.

A career you were keen to explore turns out to be not at all what you’re looking for. A chance encounter with someone in a field you didn’t initially fancy now sparks your interest and sends you off on a tantalising tangent.

Small steps set a pace you can handle .… your pace. Of course, this will be different for everyone. But whatever it is, your pace will give you time to spot intriguing options that might be hiding in plain sight. It’ll also create calm and capacity to absorb new skills and knowledge. And perhaps most importantly, a steady pace makes it easier to recalibrate and reset the path if necessary. You’ll have time to make a classy, controlled U-turn without needing to come to a screaming halt.

3 Ways to switch on your small-steps mindset

Be playful

A successful career change combines some serious, structured figuring out with a sense of fun and adventure. While you need to be serious and disciplined about the process, there are advantages to approaching it with a light touch and deciding not to take yourself too seriously.

Playfulness is principally a state of mind. It lets you explore new things in a judgment-free zone. Generally, we’re more focused on fun than outcomes when we play. We’re just absorbed in the activity and curious to see how it turns out. Small steps lightly taken can help you activate your playful side and enhance your career change adventure.

If your career change cheer squad includes playful people who’ll encourage you to do fun stuff for its own sake, so much the better.

5 Seriously good ways to be a playful career changer

Put progress before perfection

If you hold off on kickstarting your career change until everything is in place (perfect plan, perfect skill set, perfect job sussed), you could be waiting … forever.

Make #doneisbetterthanperfect your mantra or create your own version. Don’t let your shouty inner critics or well-meaning flesh and blood humans tell you … ‘Wait, are you sure you’re ready? Why not do a bit more research or another 20 online personality tests?’

Tell your capable, courageous self and anyone else who needs to know, ‘Look, I’m not at all sure about some or any of this, but I’m going to get out there and find out.’

Then, start taking small, imperfect, exploratory steps and watch things start falling into place.

Follow the sparks

Switch on ‘play’ mode, give perfectionism the flick (tough to do but super liberating once you’ve done it), and get cracking with small steps.

Now watch your career change antennae start to ping.

Why? Those three things, in cahoots with disciplined deep dives into who you are and what you want, create great conditions for discovering intriguing career change options.

And the result? Out of the blue, seemingly small sparky but often significant career change clues will pop up as you do day-to-day things.

So, start noticing who and what grabs your interest, raises your heart rate and sends you racing off to find out more: A ‘random’ conversation with someone in your outer network, a documentary you chanced on while channel surfing, a book title that caught your eye, a podcast recommended by a friend, a poster for a community event.

Capture these sparks. Note them on paper or on your phone. Now, step towards them. Have a look, a listen or a read. Go to that event and arrange a coffee chat with that ‘random’ conversationalist.

Note that I haven’t mentioned having a single blinding career change epiphany here. That’s because although they can happen, they’re rarer than [insert mythical creature of your choice.]

And even if you’re convinced a transformative career change epiphany is on the cards and heading your way, do something while you wait.

Here’s how to kindle your career change and light those sparks.

Struggling to take your next step towards a new career? I’ll help you find your feet. 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.

Drop me a note to organise a free 20 minute consultation to chat about your career change and how coaching could help.