There’s nothing worse than being stuck in a dead-end job or living paycheck to paycheck. It’s hard to see the future when you know you’re likely to be making the same amount this month and next and probably a few years from now unless something changes. Sometimes you need to make big changes in your life to find your energy and spirit again. Perhaps this is your year to reinvent yourself and improve your life overall.
Get a Career that Moves
If you hate being stuck behind a counter or in a cubicle, give it up! Remember researchers estimate their generation of workers will change careers at least ten times on average over their lifetime. Try your hand on a cruise ship or see what sorts of jobs are available on airlines in your area. Even less glamorous jobs can let you leave tedium behind and see the world.
Get training as a short or long term lorry driver or perhaps a train steward and you can be constantly in motion. It may not have been high on your list of career possibilities before you spend mind numbing years in a boring office space, but consider how much of the countryside you can enjoy seeing as you drive materials or people around. Not to mention the flexibility that comes with this sort of career.
Make Plans to Get Started
It’s not hard to get started in a new career. Often, simply planning a way to escape what you’re doing now is enough to give you renewed energy and focus. You may have to work your way up and start from the bottom in a new industry, but taking a position on a cruise ship, for example, will also provide room and board. For some jobs you may need the proper training and credentials.
Some careers may take months or years of training – working in airlines or trains for example. But others take less time. You can be trained in less than a week as a lorry driver, and there is such a demand for accredited LGV (Large Good Vehicle) drivers that you may be able to get your training course and testing financed for you through programs like this.
Move Yourself
If you’re not able to jump into a career that lets you move and see the country, if not the world, then you can at least pick yourself out a new part of it. If you’re feeling claustrophobic in your current lifestyle – move! You can crunch numbers in one city as easily as you do the next, so see what possibilities are out there for you if you change cities or even change countries.
Why not move out into the countryside or back into the heart of the city? A change of location can jumpstart your career, it can fire up your personal life and it can breathe a breath of fresh air back into your day-to-day activities. There’s a reason we so often long for a fresh start – it can be a powerful tool to reinvent yourself and improve your life overall.
Granted, you’ll want to approach this carefully to be sure you can afford your new choice of location and your new career. But sometimes it’s worth it to try a fresh location, even if you have to take a step back in terms of income. Becoming a waiter or a bartender in a tourist hotspot may not seem glamorous, but being surrounded by a tropical paradise as you serve drinks is certainly better than being surrounded by four ugly beige walls as you file papers or fold clothes.
