When it comes to making a career change, you will inevitably face the uncomfortable tension between short term and long term goals. It will feel like you are being pulled in two different directions -
In the short term, you still need to make money, provide for your family, and maintain a reasonable lifestyle. However, those short term needs will often be strained by your long term career change objectives. That is, you will need to figure out what to do next, get your transferable skills assessed, save money for retraining or additional education, and prepare for the financial cost of potentially starting in a new industry at entry level pay, at least temporarily.
The main point is, your ability to navigate career change is directly related to your capacity manage this tension between the short term and the long term – or what Steven Covey referred to as the difference between urgent and non-urgent matters of importance. Too often we cling to the urgent out of fear of the unknown, fear of upsetting our flow of disposable income, or perhaps a desire to simply take life as it comes.
But we must not yield to this temptation. Career change does not happen overnight, and so we need to take a good hard look at the future and plan slow, incremental steps toward our long term career dreams. Breaking things down into small, manageable steps is not easy, and sometimes we need others to help us, but it is well worth the effort, and I believe in your ability to do it!