Change is never easy. It’s human nature to stick to the comforts of habit, but when it comes to your profession, changing careers may sometimes be just what you need to have a more fulfilling and satisfying work life. Having a few bad days leading up to a project deadline is one thing; being consistently unhappy is another. Gone are the days where employee loyalty lasted entire careers. In fact, statistics reveal that the average worker will have a career change five to seven times during the course of their professional life. Choosing a career change is no light decision, but there are certain unavoidable factors to help you decide when a new professional path is right for you.

You no longer feel challenged at work. Although the bulk majority of your work responsibilities should utilise your existing skills and experience, a satisfying job should ideally provide tasks that will challenge you and help you grow professionally at least 20% of the time. If you find yourself bored and unchallenged daily, tackling the same tasks day in and day out, it could be one of the first signs that you may need to shake things up a little bit at work. Try seeing if you can take on more responsibilities or new projects to inspire you at work. If your manager is resistant or there simply isn’t the opportunity to stretch your current abilities, it may be time to start looking for another job that can.

You don’t get along with your colleagues. While it’s not a requirement to become friends with all your peers at work, there should be a level of professionalism and effective communication (at the very minimum) that helps business run smoothly. If you find yourself butting heads with your coworkers and/or having trouble getting along well enough to continue to conduct business seamlessly, you may want need to consider finding a better work environment that may not have so much negativity hanging in the air.

Your boss isn’t the right manager for you. Sure, everyone wishes that they had a supportive and understanding manager whom they can get along really well with. Unfortunately, easy-going bosses don’t always make the most effective managers. Every employee has a different work style, just as every manager has a different management style. Whether or not you get along with your supervisor, what’s more important for your career is whether or not your manager’s style of management melds well with your work style and professional goals. If it doesn’t, your professional career may be floundering and it’s better to get out now while other opportunities may still exist.

Your priorities in life are different now. Priorities change over time, but that doesn’t always mean your career changes with you. If you’re still working long hours or making a lower salary that you feel you rightly deserve, but you have a growing family to support and want to spend more time with, you have some soul searching ahead of you.  

You’re only in it for the money. Perhaps your problem isn’t a shortage of money. Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to have found a well-paying job over the years that has afforded you a comfortable life. However, if you’re only sticking around with your current company solely for the pay and you have no interest in the work, you’re not exactly doing yourself any favours either. Job satisfaction is a huge factor in overall happiness and if you’re feeling depressed or bored at work, or even just feeling like you’re simply going through the motions, a career change should be considered. Financial wealth and security is indeed an important factor to consider, but so should your passions and overall contentment. 

Deciding whether or not to make a career change will certainly be one of the more important decisions you can ever make in your professional career. The idea of changing such a large aspect of your life so drastically may be daunting, but the alternative of continuing to subject yourself to negative people or an unproductive work environment will eventually take its toll on you in the long run. Remember, we all spend roughly 32% of our entire lives at work. It’s our job to ensure that time at the workplace is well spent.