676: Career Change Triggers: Why Most People Wait Years Too Long to Leave a Job (And How to Break the Pattern)

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:00: What if we could predict when you would make a change in your career better than you can? Turns out that prediction is a lot closer to reality than what most of us would like to think.

Whether you've been feeling burned out or bored, or you've just realized that your values and life goals no longer align with your work, you're still human.

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I like to think that my behaviors or decisions are my own, but most of the time they're actually predictable.

For example, we mentioned a podcast episode a while back that statistically, people who've been long-term with the same company and want to make a change or a pivot, don't actually make the final decision to leave until you've been there for 8, 13, or 18 years.

Does this happen exclusively? No, of course not. But there's an overwhelming majority of people to the point where there's a clear behavioral pattern here.

By the way, this comes from HTYC specific data and includes people in the same industry long term. It gives you an idea.

Does that mean if you fall into that long-term employee group and it's year 9, that you're stuck until year 13? No, of course not. This episode is actually about helping you understand the patterns of your own behavior and making an intentional choice, and more on breaking out of the normal behavior patterns in just a moment.

But first, let's acknowledge what happens on average. The fascinating part is that almost all of us stay in our respective situations for too long. For example, when many of our clients reach out to us, it's initially, sometimes it's been months or even years that they've been feeling unhappy or feeling like they need to make a change or not fulfilled at work, and you might find yourself in that same position.

Maybe you're comfortable where you're at, scared of risk. By the way, fear is a huge thing when it comes to any kind of change. Not just career change, not just career pivots. Because it's something that you are initiating. There's no one saying, "Hey, guess what? You must change." It's you wanting to make the change. And sometimes you are not a great motivator, especially when it's not a clear path to take to make that type of change.

And that's actually why most people stay in less than desirable situations until certain trigger events happen. In fact, there's almost always an external event that occurs that causes people to reevaluate their situation, their career, or their work. And over the years, we've actually compiled a list of 16 specific life events that cause that reassessment. Those are the career change catalysts or triggers.

Now, 16 is a lot to discuss in a podcast episode, so we're not gonna drain every single one of these or go through all of them. Instead, I'll cover just a few examples and what they look like.

So, life event number eight. Interactions at your company caused you to realize that there's no future for you. If it becomes clear that there's no growth, no development in the way that you want, or no future, then that can be a game changer cause reassessment. And this is true for Edna, by the way. Her story was on the Happen To Your Career podcast a while back, and we'll link it up in the show notes and description. After she'd been in her company for many years, she wanted a new challenge. So she went and did what most people do, and she took a leap into a similar role at a new company.

Now, she expected this to be an improvement. This is a normal thing that people do. They say, "Well, maybe if I just make a transition into a new situation, that'll take care of it." Spoiler alert, it generally does not. But when she did this, found it to be an even worse fit.

And by the way, this is actually life event number 13. In Edna's case, though, she left behind a role where she was bored. She saw limited growth opportunities, only to end up in a position with even less autonomy and a poor fit in terms of values and culture.

The positive change she anticipated felt much more like a step backwards. Now, the good news is, within nine months, Edna transformed her situation. She found a role that aligned well with her values and goals, and relocated to a new country, even, and a situation that she loves. And she received a higher salary than what she asked for. Again, her full story will be in the show notes linked up.

Now, similar to Edna, we get to interact with a lot of people where multiple life events and multiple triggers happen at the same time. And this is what happened to Karen. She was actually feeling pretty burned out from working in education. During the pandemic, in that same year, her best friend and her father passed away. And her mom and dog were both diagnosed with cancer.

That's a heck of a year, right? And that'll cause you to evaluate what is happening and how you're spending your time in your life.

And that turns out to be life event number two, death of a family member. And number three, a close call or illness with a friend or family member.

Karen, of course, realized she wasn't living in alignment with her priorities, particularly putting her family first, like for real. And in this case, especially her young daughter. Her career was taking her away from the people that she loved the most.

So after a wake-up call with the pandemic and cancer so close to home, she intentionally shifted her career to align with her priorities. And the really cool thing here is she did a fantastic job of designing, not just work, but a total life that she loves.

And by the way, if you've listened to more than one episode of the Happen To Your Career podcast, then you probably are very aware that you cannot separate out career from the rest of other areas of your life. It's just not possible. They are mutually dependent on one another.

Therefore, when we're helping people, we often start from what is the life that you want to build, and then how does work fit within that life.

Karen now has a role she enjoys. It allows her to prioritize her wellbeing, her family. And similar to Edna, if you want to hear her journey to a more fulfilling career that supports the life she wants to build, then her full story is linked up in the show notes, too.

Life event number nine. Your health is impacted. When your health declines, it often becomes a catalyst to have you realize that you can't keep going the way that you have been.

And we've shared a lot of those stories over the years. Temporary blindness due to stress. This was Alissa's episode, you know, episode 403.

My personal story was, I gained nearly 50 pounds to the point where I was getting winded running upstairs. We told this story in the Happen To Your Career book, which, by the way, will link up a place where you can go specifically to listen to the audiobook for free for a limited time. So definitely check that out in the show notes.

But in another case, you know, we have people who were experiencing seizures from lack of sleep. That was episode 520 with Louie.

Aaron was experiencing a severe case. He'd been working in construction management for approximately 10 years. He found himself unhappy and contemplating pretty drastic measures to escape his unfulfilling job. His health was suffering. He was burned out and having a lot of depression symptoms, but leaving was very complicated because he worked for his family business.

So he realized he needed to make a change when he legitimately considered driving into a ditch to get out of work. The good news, he did actually end up leaving the family business. He even went after a lifelong dream while he was making a change. And again, links to this in the show notes.

I wanted to share a few different examples because most people we talked to believe that their individual situation is unique. You are unique. You are a unique human being, but your behavior? Likely not. And the only way to get it to become different than how most humans respond or react or behave, is to learn about that behavior and then set up systems to change that behavior. That's it. That's the only way.

Because if you don't set up or engage in systems to do things differently, you will fall back in line with human behavior. Which includes staying comfortable in not great but comfortable situations for far, far, far too long. That's normal.

Here's a challenge for you to break the cycle.

What I wanna do is challenge you and encourage you to do something specifically different today that could make an impact in your world. Get help in just one area of your life that you're struggling with. Plug into a system that will help make it easier for you to make changes. Do just one thing.

If you're struggling, reach out to a friend or schedule time with a therapist. If it's fitness or health, schedule time with a trainer or nutrition consultant. But if it's anything for your career at all, then we can help. Especially if you want to build a life that fits your personal version of extraordinary, and figure out how to make work fit within that. Intentional career change, job search, even onboarding to a new organization in your first six months, while you're setting boundaries and training your coworkers for how to interact with you, all of that we can help with.

But whatever it is, break the cycle. Most people are gonna wait until something happens, one of those trigger points. And you don't have to. You can do it differently right now.

Here's what I invite you to do. Reach out to me and our team directly. Send me an email, Scott@happentoyourcareer.com, put 'Conversation' in the subject line. I'll introduce you to my team, we'll have a conversation, figure out the very best way that we can support you for your goals and the behaviors you want to change.

All right, until next time, I am out.