CRAFT YOUR DREAM JOB
You can dig yourself out of discontent. Melanie Burgess reports
THE right mindset can turn a career rut or dead-end into an opportunity – it is all a matter of perspective.
SEEK resident psychologist Sabina Read says the solution may be a big career change or minor tweaks to a current role.
She says a rut is not just a “a tough week” but results from having the same negative thoughts and feelings over a long period of time.
“Being in a rut can be interpreted as a crisis point or it can be a marker that you are at a point requiring change,” she says.
“Sometimes we have to go down in order to find a place of reflection for what we desire and how we move forward. Being stuck is a normal experience
– it is about what you do with that ‘stuckness’.”
Read says the first step to climbing out of a rut is acknowledging you are there and that it is an OK place to be.
The next step is to work out where you want to go next.
“Ask yourself, if you could do anything with your time, what would you choose to do?” she says.
“You may not be able to manifest that overnight but it’s a good question to start with.”
Once you can answer that question, step three presents two options: “job crafting” to tweak your current role; or moving into something new.
Read advises asking yourself if there are changes you can make in your current role.
“(Job crafting) might be less dramatic than ‘I have to get out of here and don’t know what to do next’,” she says. “Often we overlook opportunities that are under our nose.
“Smaller incremental changes can create more meaningful change.”