Consider These Nine Things if You Need Direction in Your Work Life

If you’re feeling as if your career is currently lacking direction and your motivation is quickly draining away, you’re right to want to take action. We all spend a lot of our time on our jobs, and we want to feel invested in the work we do. If you feel that this is lacking for you, considering your direction is a good idea.

While I know there’s no one-size-fits all, I wanted to share some ideas with you. Especially if you need clarity. Or are looking to rediscover a sense of direction and purpose in your career. There’s no silver bullet answer. Which is why I’m sharing nine things to consider.

One – Be Clear About What’s Currently Lacking

First of all, you should be clear with yourself about what your current job and career path is lacking. If you find that you’re not fulfilled by your current role, try to get to the bottom of why that is. When you can pinpoint exactly why you’re not satisfied with things as they are right now? You’ll put yourself in a much better position to know how things need to change moving forward.

So start by thinking this over and finding some clarity before moving on to the next steps.

Two – Consider Growth Within Your Current Role

Considering the growth of your career within your current role is a good idea. Even if you think you want to change direction, my best advice is to start right where you are. This gives you a chance for more clarity. And an opportunity to make progress first without major changes.

Sometimes, finding ways to bring more to your role and taking it to a new level with the input of your manager or employer can be a wise move. Just because it’s not fulfilling you right now, that doesn’t mean it can’t be tweaked and changed in order to allow for greater growth.

Three – Find Direction by Stepping Up in Terms of Responsibility

For many people, the thing that’s missing in their career is a sense of responsibility. When people don’t think that their work is really impactful or that they don’t have any genuine responsibility in their work, that can be really difficult for them to accept. Maybe you need to find a promotion or a new role that places more responsibility and accountability on your shoulders. It’s what many people end up craving in their careers and it just might work wonders for you.

Four – Identify Your Ideal Job Description

It often helps for you to identify in a specific way what it is you’re looking for in terms of your dream role. You don’t even need to identify the specific niche you want to be working with. Instead, think about how your ideal job would make you feel and what kind of work and responsibilities it would give you from day to day. From there, you can start to form an ideal job description and ultimately find something that matches up with it well.

Five – Invest in Yourself for More Clarity

In order to make progress or even a simple change in your career, you often need to think about how you can invest in yourself. If you’re stagnating, it could be down to a lack of skills or because you’ve reached your current ceiling. But that doesn’t mean you can’t raise that ceiling and find a way to invest in yourself. It could mean looking for ways to pick up new skills or even retraining and going back into education if you want to make a career change.

Six – Understand Your Personality Type

You know I’m a big fan of knowing your personality type in order to be happy. That extends to your work life. Because it’s often useful to think about your personality type and how this might help to direct you as you choose the next steps forward in your career. Your personality really dictates what you’re good at in terms of your work and what you’re best suited to doing day after day. The Myers Briggs test can help you to learn more about your personality type and what it might mean for you, so be sure to explore options such as that one if you haven’t done so already.

Seven – Talk to a Career Advisor for Direction and Advice

Talking to a career advisor is another great way to gain insights into what you actually need from your career right now and the direction you might want to take moving forward. Talking to a career coach or advisor will help you understand better the options that are open to you, and you’ll get advice from someone who really knows what they’re talking about. These conversations can also be helpful to you as articulating your plans and ideas is always different from simply stewing them over in your mind.

Eight – If You’re Considering a Career Change, Talk to People Who’ve Done the Same

If you think you do want to make a change to your career, it usually pays off to talk to people who have made a similar switch. If that’s what you’re interested in doing and you want to make sure that the career change ends up being the right one for you, it really does make sense to talk to people who know what they’re talking about because they’ve been there and done it before.

Nine – Take Action Rather Than Get Stuck in Career Paralysis

Finally, you should acknowledge the importance of taking action and actually getting things done when you’re looking to make a change due to career dissatisfaction. Doing something and making a mistake is often better than doing nothing and simply leaving yourself in a state of career paralysis. So take action and try something new.

Finding the right direction in your career is tough, and many people struggle with where their career path is taking them.

If that’s something that you’ve been concerned about recently, some of the ideas discussed above should be able to help you as you look for the way forward in your career.