How to Trust Your Career Change Instincts

Have you ever felt a longing for something more or a voice inside your head saying, “this can’t be it!” Maybe it’s the scrolling on LinkedIn at 1am, the deep dread on a Sunday or the soul sucking meetings where you pretend to listen. You know that feeling – the unmistakable sense that it might be time for a career change. But how do you trust it?

However strong the nudge is, it’s often met with overwhelm, self-doubt, uncertainty and fear. You begin to question the feeling and struggle to take any action. So how can you learn to trust yourself – let me break it down.

Listen to What Your Body Is Saying

Many individuals I work with have become very disconnected from their bodies. In a world where so much focus is put on thinking, doing and our brain, it’s not a surprise. But our bodies hold so much wisdom and we are doing ourselves a disservice by not tapping into our body’s natural intelligence. I want you to reflect on your current job and notice how your body responds. Everyone’s body is different but here are some examples of what you might become aware of:

• Emotions & physical responses that indicate this may be an aligned career/job: excitement, openness, optimism, happiness, feeling at peace, lightness, feeling relaxed, high energy.

• Emotions & physical responses that indicate this may not be an aligned career/job: sadness, lethargy, anxiety, discomfort, frustration, boredom, pointlessness, tightness in your body, a pit in your stomach, headache, heaviness, clenched jaw, shrinking inwards, being lost for words, unable to express yourself.

Start paying attention to your physical responses and remember that your body often recognises what your mind hasn’t caught up to yet. This is about developing your awareness around how you really feel about your job. Honour how you feel and use this as data to help inform your decisions and action steps.

Acknowledge the Fear Without Letting It Lead

One of the key differences between your intuition and fear is, your intuition tends to be quiet whereas your fear is usually loud. Just when you start to consider making a change with your career, that’s when it starts to shout… “What if it doesn’t work out?” “What if I’m making a huge mistake?” “What are people going to think?” It’s important to remember that fear does not necessarily mean you’re on the wrong path. Feeling fear is a natural human response when we perceive something as dangerous – and the unknown can be really scary.

The aim isn’t to get rid of the fear, it’s ok that you feel it but the key is to not let it control your decisions and actions. You’re allowed to feel scared and still move forward. Fear is often a sign you’re stepping out of your comfort zone and that’s often where the magic happens.

Learn how to acknowledge the fear and the part of you that is scared so that voice can calm down and you can reconnect to your intuition.

Let Go of External Validation

When you’re stuck in uncertainty, wondering whether to make the career change or not, it’s common to look to others for advice. Whether it’s constantly asking friends or family for their opinion or endlessly researching. But here’s the thing: deep down, you know what you want to do and you’re just hoping someone will validate that choice.

Take a moment to think about your options, to stay in your job or leave? To start your own business or carry on in a corporate role? Whatever it is, imagine someone you trust suggesting you go for option A and then option B – notice how you feel in your body as you imagine that. Did you feel relief? Did you feel your chest tighten and frustration? Tune into this inner knowing, it’s a clue pointing you toward what you really want but might be too scared to admit yet.

The key: you don’t need anyone else’s permission to go after what feels right to you, it’s about learning to trust yourself.

Prime Your Mind to Recognise Intuitive Downloads

There more you focus on something, the more you notice it – this isn’t just a woo woo thing you see on social media, this is backed by science. The reticular activating system (RAS) is a network in the brain stem that helps us focus on what we deem as important.

Use this principle to tune into and recognise your intuitive downloads. I recommend starting to track your gut feelings and instinctive nudges, so they become a focus for you and your mind is primed to notice more of them. Even if these don’t relate to your career, that’s fine, they still matter.

The Waiting Game

The thing about experiencing a career change instinct is it’s often a little nudge, a feeling or a voice, it doesn’t come with a step-by-step guide of what to do next. The trap I see so many falling into is just waiting. Waiting for more clarity, to feel more certainty or for another sign this is the “right” choice. But waiting, just leads to more waiting and you will find yourself feeling even more stuck.

Taking action is one of the best antidotes for feeling stuck. It is through taking action that you will find more clarity and being able to know for certain whether this feels like the “right” thing. You don’t need to have every step figured out, just consider what feels like the first step? What aligned action can you take? As you take action you build momentum and most importantly trust in yourself.

I often speak with my clients about taking “no pressure” action – this is where you focus on having fun, being curious and exploring your options rather than feeling like every decision comes with the huge weight of completely changing your life forever.

Recognise The Risk of Staying Stuck

You may spend a lot of time mulling over the risks of change, but do you ever stop and think about the risk of staying exactly where you are? When you resist change, you stay stagnant.

This is about recognising the cost of inaction – and sometimes this feels a lot smaller than the discomfort of change but if those instinctive voices keep telling you you’re your career needs a change, when will you listen? How can you get support to listen and bravely go down a new path?

Client Breakthrough

One of my client’s came to me after a year of feeling a constant nudge that there must be more to life. She felt unfulfilled and stuck but completely scared about what to do and where to start. So, we worked together to quieten down the loud voices – the opinions of others and her fear. And this is where her breakthrough came, through taking “no pressure” action she started to have fun exploring her options and opened a new world of possibilities for herself. She got a new job and most importantly developed a strong foundation of belief in herself and an unshakeable level of self-trust.

Strengthen Your Self-Trust, One Step at a Time

Learning to trust yourself can be a journey. It needs to be built on listening and taking one step at a time, even when you feel scared. The more you tune into your intuition, the stronger it will become, so I recommend you reflect on this article and consider how you can integrate the key points. How can you make listening to your intuition part of your life?  

This is a reminder that you are allowed to want more (no matter what anyone else thinks or says), you deserve a career that truly fulfils you AND it is possible to not spend the whole of Sunday dreading Mondays. Trust me on this, I never thought that shift would happen.

You don’t have to have all the answers today. You just have to trust that you will find them along the way.

You’ve got this!

Want someone by your side to make a career change? Book a free discovery call to discuss how I can support you.