A career rut is an altogether too familiar phenomenon and can be very difficult to snap oneself out of. Sometimes a little change will do the trick: even just moving locations or to the desk on the other side of the office, but once the rot really sets in it is time to pick up and move to greener (more interesting) pastures with a total change in career.
Descent into monotony
The tricky thing about a career rut is that it sneaks up on you. One day you're fine, whistling while you work at your desk. The next month... getting up to go to work just seems so hard, and why does the public transport system have to be so jammed? When the little things start to feel like huge dramas, you need to take a closer look at what's actually going on.
The shocking revelation that you aren't happy
When you take the time to self evaluate – which we hardly ever do in the rush of daily life, you might find that you actually aren't happy in your job and perhaps haven't been for some time. Before misery settles over you like a fog, realize that there are much worse things than being at the crossroads of a career change. Change can either be approached with fear and apprehension or embraced with excitement for the future: you choose.
Once you know that it's your job that has dragged you down recently; not necessarily because there's anything wrong with the job (maybe you were just too used to it and became bored), then you can move ahead in planning an exciting change in career.
Where to from here?
You know you dislike your current situation, but you may not yet know what will make you happier. This is the most dangerous phase of the change in career, with the potential to present an unfortunate 'out of the frying pan and into the fire' development: we certainly want to avoid that.
This middle phase, before you actually jump ship, is crucially important and should be a lengthy process of researching and self assessing to decide what you really want to be doing. A big part of this is actually recognizing the path that led you to this point. Perhaps you became a lawyer because your family were all lawyers or a journalist because you were good at English in school, or a bricklayer because you didn't want more school at that stage of your life. Anything is possible from this point on; it's really just a matter of deciding.
Embracing the change
Change has a habit of dealing out far reaching consequences. It's like the stone that starts gathering momentum as it rolls along; once you charge up your career with new excitement and gusto, it will start to pick up speed and take you places you didn't even know that you wanted to go.
A change in career can alter your whole perspective and provide the personal growth and new experiences needed to move forward in life. Some of the best things happen when we take plunge to make a dramatic change.
