The other day I was having a conversation with a really good friend of mine. He was talking about how he was unhappy with his job and he was looking for a new job. I noticed that he was only ever talking about the things he wanted out of a new job. So I stopped the conversation and said, “just as a friend, what do you not like about your current role?” And then we proceeded to have a really interesting conversation for about the next hour, understanding what he didn’t like out of his job versus what he thought he would love in a new job.
So when you’re looking for a new job, when you’re at that point where you’ve outgrown, where you are, or you’re just not seeing what you want, you don’t feel fulfilled, whatever the reason is, and you start looking for a new job.
My advice to you would be to make a list of both the things you love doing as well as the things that you don’t like doing. Because the last thing you want to do is change jobs and uproot your stability and lose your tenure and all these other things that come with staying with one company to end up in another job that has the same attributes as what you didn’t like in your first one.
When you’re looking for a new position, when you’re job hunting, make sure you’re really going through the job description and seeing how much of it overlaps with what you dislike about your current role.
Sometimes we’re just so optimistic about finding something better somewhere else. Maybe that comes from a place of being unfulfilled, being sad or frustrated, but generally just being unhappy. We only look for the things that we think are going to make us happy, but it’s just as important to look at those things that are causing you to be unhappy in your job and really try and make sure you can eliminate them or minimize get creative about not having them in your next role. So that’s today’s point, look at the things that make you happy and try and incorporate those as much as you can into your new role. But don’t forget about those things that make you unhappy and are the reasons that you’re thinking about leaving or switching your career.