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Recognizing and acknowledging the signs that you're in the wrong career is the first step toward finding a more fulfilling and satisfying professional path. By exploring new opportunities, conducting research, and seeking guidance, you can embark on a journey toward a career that aligns with your personality, talents, skills, interests, and values.
- Overview
- What is a wrong career?
- Signs you chose the wrong career
- What to do if you chose the wrong career
Despite planning for a rewarding career, you might feel that your professional life requires a major change. Many people choose the wrong career at first, take time to plan a new path and find great success in a new role or industry. If you have doubts about your current career, you might benefit from learning about the serious indicators of a wron...
A wrong career is one that consistently fails to meet the qualities that your "right" career would have. Your skills, preferences, value placed on work and beliefs determine a well-chosen career, and these factors may change with time. A career that felt right initially may now seem wrong for you.Most professionals have to make some compromises between their ideal and actual work circumstances, but it's important to consider if the compromises you're making are acceptable or are helping you achieve long-term goals. If not, you may be in the wrong career.Here are the factors you might look at in assessing how suitable of a career you've chosen:
•Skills and abilities: Your career should make use of the skills and abilities you naturally possess or have developed.
•Education: Sometimes a temporary or convenient job opportunity ends up becoming a years-long investment of your time and energy that doesn't align with your educational background or interests.
•Importance of professional development: Some people apply their ambition to their careers and work for higher pay, promotions, respect in an industry and more responsibility. You may feel differently about the role of work in your life and prefer a career that meets your financial needs but allows you to apply your ambition elsewhere.
•Financial needs: You likely have a unique set of financial needs that require a minimum amount of income. A wrong career prevents you from making the salary you need to be safe, healthy and happy.
•Beliefs and values: If your career contradicts beliefs and values you care about, you might be in the wrong career. Right careers align with and draw insights from what you believe and how you think.
Effects on mental health
No matter your profession, you can expect to have troubling periods where you feel stressed, anxious or frustrated. While not pleasant, these feelings may mean you care about your work and are passionate about producing excellent results. For instance, a doctor may have to treat a difficult case that makes them feel emotions usually considered negative, but these emotions might mean the doctor sincerely wants to figure out a problem and ensure the patient's wellbeing, not that they're in the wrong career.However, if your career has continuously caused you to feel negative emotions and mentally unhealthy, you may reconsider your career choice. A right career can improve your mental health by giving you a sense of purpose, providing you with positive social interactions, giving you the resources to take care of yourself and improving your self-esteem. If you believe your career can't offer any of these benefits, then it might be time to look for a new profession.
Physical symptoms
Physical health provides several insights into whether you're in a wrong career. Your body reflects your mental health. If your chronic physical ailments parallel your mental health symptoms, you might be suffering because of stress from work. The demands of your career may also make it impossible to care for your body's needs with exercise, sleep and regular diet. Most people work until in their 60s. If the schedule you'd maintain for decades equals decades of physical pain, you might be in the wrong career.Sometimes physical symptoms are much simpler indicators of being in the wrong career. If you work in a physically demanding job and an injury or bodily condition makes performing your duties dangerous or painful, then you might consider a career change.Related: 20 Signs You're Overworked and Underpaid
Poor career outlook
Your career outlook has two key components: trends affecting the profession and your personal feelings about the future. You likely have some understanding of the economic trends that may improve or diminish your future prospects, but it's helpful to study what economists and industry leaders predict for your career. For instance, if you choose a career driving taxis, you might feel the hiring environment is currently promising, but it might be useful to know that automated cars may eliminate most taxi driver positions in the future.How you feel about your future also may help determine if you've chosen the right profession. Ideally, you know how you can progress in your role, desire to improve your work performance and look forward to building your career. If you're pessimistic about continuing in your field or feel there is no opportunity for growth, you might rethink your professional future.
1. Reevaluate your conclusion
Before making any decisions, allow yourself to reevaluate what's making you feel pessimistic or upset about work. You may be correct about needing a career change, but there are other possible causes, such as: •Wrong work environment: Sometimes the actual issue isn't your career, but where you are working. Poorly managed workplaces, difficult colleagues or struggling organizations can all lead you to conclude prematurely that the negative emotions you experience result from what you do instead of where you do it. •External factors: It's important to ask if the conditions of your personal life and wellbeing are influencing your beliefs about your career. Your relationships, your general mental health and the recent events in your life might make you feel a meaningful need for change, but changing your career might not address the core difficulties you experience. •Temporary frustrations: While it would be preferable if temporary only meant professional difficulties lasted hours or days, temporary sometimes means months or years. Consider if your otherwise rewarding career is requiring you to sacrifice for a difficult but ultimately worthwhile period. •Lack of guidance: Evaluating your career requires some understanding of how you can grow and what you can expect. To feel more informed and optimistic about your future, you might seek mentors or career coaches who can address the concerns making you doubt your career choice. Related: 15 Ways To Deal With Burnout
2. Rank your priorities
If you conclude with certainty that you're in the wrong career, then ranking your priorities can help you make a better choice this time. Keeping in mind that no career can be perfect, list the priorities you associate with work and decide which ones are most important for you to configure into future roles.
3. Define qualifications
While there might be an array of careers that meet your priorities, you likely have qualifications that make some options more sensible or easier to accomplish. Review the skills and abilities you gained from your education and professional experiences and compare them to the job descriptions that most intrigue you. Changing careers usually requires learning new material or skills, so identify any additional training necessary to adapt your qualifications for your transition.
- You Hate Your Work And You're Disengaged. Perhaps the most obvious sign that you've picked the wrong career is that you absolutely hate the work that you do.
- You Can't Relate To Your Coworkers, Like, At All. This could just be the office work environment, which is unfortunate but not a deal-breaker. But think hard: when you network with others in your field, do you find it unreasonably challenging to make sense of what they’re saying, or find yourself tuning them out completely?
- You Spend Your Workday Daydreaming About Other Jobs. We all have a little career envy every once in a while—who wouldn’t love working with celebs every day or working on a beach in a tropical oasis?—
- You Find Yourself Wishing You Could Go Back, Not Forward. We all wish we could go back in time and do certain things differently. If you realize you probably should have majored in something else, or that you should never have headed down this career path, that’s okay—don't panic or beat yourself up.
Dec 7, 2021 · You don’t enjoy the work you do. – Put plainly, you hate it. If you wish that you could delegate all of your work to someone else, not because you’re lazy or too busy, but because you don ...
- Jumping to the Worst-Case Scenario. You’ve realized you’re unhappy at work: You dread coming into the office each day, and you count down the minutes until the clock hits 5 PM.
- Major Discouragement. Deciding you want to change careers can be completely overwhelming. It feels like everything leading up to this point—your years of education, professional development, promotions, and late nights at the office—have all been a waste.
- Resignation That You’ll Have to Start From the Bottom. If you want to make a major career shift, your first reaction may involve a sigh of resignation as you assume that to actually get a job in your new target industry, you’ll need to go back to school for at least another four years, apply to only entry-level positions, or submit yourself to an unpaid internship.
May 7, 2018 · While “picking the wrong career is not an uncommon thing,” according to Karen Elizaga, career coach and author of Find Your Sweet Spot, it’s not always easy to tell the difference between a bad position and a bad career. If you’re unhappy and you know it—but you’re not sure whether you need a new job or a new career path—then read on to find out what the wrong career looks like ...
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