While there are many students here at Edison who are training to be a registered holistic nutritionist at the beginning of their careers, just as many are planning to switch out of an unsatisfying one.
However, if you’re planning such a switch, it’s important to know whether this is the right choice for you.
After all, it’s not a decision to be taken lightly.
Below, we chat with entrepreneur coach Veronica Kirin about what you should ask yourself to decide to switch to a new career.
Questions To Ask Yourself To See If You Should Change Careers
Veronica Kirin is an entrepreneur coach who works with folks who, among other things, are considering a career change.
A prolific writer, Veronica’s work has been recognized in Forbes, Fast Company, NPR, and Buzzfeed.
She’s also done two Ted Talks, and spoken at length on entrepreneurship and career excellence around the world.
So it’s safe to say on the subject of entrepreneurship and career changing, Veronica Kirin is an authority.
We sat down with Veronica to talk about the types of questions to ask yourself to help make the decision to switch careers.
1. Are You Going To Work Only For The Money?
Rather than approach this one on the surface level, it’s worthwhile to consider it from the opposite point of view.
“If you had all the money you needed, would you be doing this? Would you want to be in this office, this community, this field, this situation?”
Consider winning the lottery, or receiving a grand inheritance from a long-lost relative – would you still be doing what you do now?
However, for some folks even getting into this headspace is nearly impossible.
“That’s a sign you’re only doing it for the money,” says Veronica.
“You’ve convinced yourself so much that your current path is the necessary one that you can’t even consider what life might be like if you had the time and resources to do what you love.”
Another clear sign is that you can’t even think of what you like to do in the first place.
“If you’re stuck in a mindset of necessity, being authentic can become difficult. It can lead you to actually forget about what you love, what you truly want out of life.”
2. Has Your Performance Been Declining?
When you consider this point, think of it from more than just doing poorly.
After all, doing fine can also be a sign of suffering performance.
“When I first started working with one client, we’ll call her Amrita, she’d been working in a role for many years, and she was fine. The more we worked together, though, the clearer it became that Amrita wasn’t even really living her life, she was just existing.”
What happens when you don’t feel like you’re taking control of your life?
“Amrita and I connected at a summit where I was speaking. I’ve met a lot of wonderful people at summits, but not all of them become clients. It’s the ones who are searching for something deeper, who are unsatisfied with where they are. If Amrita was happy with where she was, she wouldn’t have been as drawn to what I was saying. When we’re miserable, our minds will start to look for support, sometimes without us even realizing it.”
3. Is Your Personal Life Starting To Suffer?
If you find your work performance declining, or if you’re doing fine but not excelling, what other areas of your life have been struggling?
“Our personal life is a signal for our unhappiness,” says Veronica. “Often we lie to ourselves, saying our current path is necessary and there’s no other option, but eventually we’re going to find an outlet for that pain whether or not we realize it.”
This outlet can manifest itself in your home, your romantic relationships or friendships, familial relations, or even stagnation in your hobbies.
But we don’t even realize it’s happening, and if we do, we don’t always realize the extent to which it’s happening.
“If you start to notice things in your personal life are slipping, it’s important to first explore where else this is manifesting. So you noticed things are a little rocky between you and your spouse – what else is suffering? From there, ask yourself if this is what you really want to be. If it’s the future and you’re on your deathbed, is this all you want there to have been?”
4. Have You Become Apathetic?
Apathy is a simple term – just not caring – but it can manifest itself in so many ways.
“Often, apathy comes with numbing behaviour,” says Veronica. “If you find yourself spending hour upon hour with Netflix or a video game, or you’re starting to use alcohol or drugs more – even a little bit – these are all behaviours that cut you off from other possibilities. They let you forget about the things about life you don’t like.”
But what’s the true source of this apathy?
“When it comes to being stuck in a career you hate, your apathy is a coping mechanism. If the idea of actually doing something you love means that you might disrupt your income – even if that’s not true – you might adopt an attitude of apathy in order to cope with feeling trapped.”
These limitations, though, are almost entirely self imposed.
“As a child, all the possibilities seem available to us. That’s still true for us as adults, but if you’ve convinced yourself that your current path is the only path even if you’re not happy, apathy is the natural conclusion. After all, you feel like you’ve had to close yourself off from what you feel like could bring you joy just to survive.”
If you find you’re just not caring about your career anymore, it could be time for a change.
5. Do You Daydream About A New Career?
There’s nothing wrong with daydreaming, of course.
Plenty of people daydream about what it might be like to be a pilot or a stunt driver, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what we want.
So how can you tell the difference between idle daydreaming and a genuine yearning for something better?
According to Veronica, try a vision board.
“Find some pictures of what you’d like your life to look like,” says Veronica. “These can be images of physical spaces, but also of what you’d like your life to generally feel like. Any ideas that grab your attention belong here. Work on it at your leisure – it doesn’t have to be done overnight – and put it in a place where you know you’ll see it every day.”
And then what?
“From there, consider what comes up for you when you imagine yourself in that life. Do you get excited when you see it? Is it a sort of idle curiosity, like how you might imagine it would be like to be a movie star or a rock star? Or do you find yourself yearning for what you see?”
Whatever it is you feel at this point, it’s pretty clear whether or not you’re happy in your career.
Call Us At The Edison Institute Of Nutrition
If you’re considering a change of career, there are plenty of options.
One, of course, is to pursue a Diploma in Holistic Nutrition program.
But is that your best option?
Call us today at the Edison Institute Of Nutrition – we can help.
Making the decision to change careers is a big one.
Call the Edison Institute Of Nutrition today to speak with one of our intake counsellors.
We’ll help you understand your options, and help you decide whether a career in registered holistic nutrition is right for you.
