What Career and Lifestyle Changes Are You Making in 2022?
This post may contain affiliate links and Corporette® may earn commissions for purchases made through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
There have been a few interesting threadjacks recently about readers reassessing where they live, who they work for, and even their entire career path — so I thought it might be an interesting discussion. Are you reassessing your career and lifestyle? Is it in response to the pandemic (or in response to others' responses, such as your office going mostly remote), to politics (e.g., deciding to move after Dobbs), climate change, or due to other reasons? I'm curious — do you feel like the past few years of decreased social outings gave you more time for introspection, and that you have more insight now into what you want or need?
Here are the questions:
- Are you changing your lifestyle or career in a major way?
- How are you going about the changes, i.e., what steps are you taking to research or enact the changes?
- What do you see the pros and cons of the change?
- What do you still NOT know about the change?
We haven't spoken about how to change your career in a major way in a few years… In the past, I've identified three things that helped me change my career from lawyer to online content creator: 1) research, 2) assess the quality of life differences, 3) identify what you don't know, 4) network, and 5) make the leap.
I think these steps still help you with major career changes as well as major lifestyle changes, although I think the big thing that is #3, which is that you don't know if or how the next few years of viruses, climate change, politics and other factors will play out. (For my $.02, it feels like life is going to continue to feel pretty volatile on a lot of these fronts for the foreseeable future.)
Some of our previous posts that might help if you're considering a big change:
How to Research a New Career
- 5 Books To Read if You're Considering Changing Your Career
- The Pros and Cons of Changing Careers (From People Who've Done It)
- Tips from Readers on Changing Careers
- How to Ask Your Interviewer about Work-Life Balance
- All About Strategic Volunteering
- How to Conduct a Long-Distance Job Search (and Jobhunting in a Different City)
- How to Secretly Use Linked In to Change Careers
- How to Change Jobs, But Not Companies
- When is a Lower Salary Worth It?
- How Your Career Affects Your Happiness
What to Consider Before Moving and Other Big Lifestyle Changes
- What to Consider Before Moving to a Lower Cost of Living Area
- What to Consider If You're Thinking About Moving to the Suburbs
- Do the Benefits of Living Closer to Work Outweigh the Cons?
- Where You Live is One of the Biggest Money Decisions You Make
- How to Take a Job Far From Friends and Family
How to Be More Social
- How to Make New Friends and Network
- How to Form a Group of Girlfriends as an Adult
- How to Make Time for Friends If You Work A Lot
How to Cut Expenses If You're Taking a Paycut
Psst: These are some of our favorite books if you're considering changing your career:
Stock photo via Stencil.
Mine’s not for work as I don’t really have a career that can’t be moved (or really a “career”).
But I am in Texas so it’s the government/Dobbs/Trump fans. Add into that the grid, the brutal last few winters and this summer, and I don’t know what’s looking up for this place. Lifelong Texan. Want somewhere with more moderate weather and moderate/Democrats. And I know – if I stay I add to the Democrats. But then see: weather and grid.
join me in writing letters for Beto. I am also in Texas, and while I’m not hopeful he will win, maybe we can make some progress
I am a life long Texan and have never been more disgusted with our state. I wouldn’t even consider myself a democrat, I’m just an independent who now wouldn’t even consider voting for a republican under any circumstances (which I guess may be the same thing as a democrat ??) am also considering a move – maybe to Colorado?
I have started on the long process of re-evaluating and restructuring my entire life by getting back into music. I have a bachelor’s degree in performance but gave it up at graduation in favor of a stable career with health insurance. 20+ years later I’ve realized that life is too short not to do what you love. I was not originally trained as a singer, but I’ve begun taking voice lessons and joined two volunteer choirs. At this point I care more about the music than about my job.
The main difference I made was to quit working for a small ‘visionary’ consulting company where, over the past year, it became clear that our owner and CEO was an anti-vaxxer. At the same time, all the staff had already gotten their COVID vaccines so that the company could retain government clients. They were sending us, the earning consultants, out to clients who required that everyone on site was vaccinated. When our CEO’s anti-vax status became clear, there was a massive wave of resignations within one month.
I decided that what was important for me was working with people who supported science and reason, people I could trust and respect. Also taking some time to put myself first and maximize my earnings for the long-term well being of myself and my family.
I took a little longer than some other coworkers to resign because COVID definitely tangled up my job search. A chief interviewer for one position got hospitalized with COVID complications, for example.
I am now an independent consultant with a bigger, international consulting company. I got the lead for this through a friend’s LinkedIn. It’s a change for me, but the friend who gave me the lead is mentoring me and has been a tremendous help. To catch up with my new colleagues, I’m anticipating doing some training over the next year. We are both embedded with one government client for a year, on a project with social value; we are remote 2 – 3 days a week. I have nearly doubled my pay for fewer hours and a more reliable schedule.
I’m going to try to do this type of consulting for five years, and then consider my options. All of this has been emotionally exhausting!
I work in criminal defense (attorney), and I recently moved from our trial division to appeals. Much more of an introverted job, but I don’t have to take on as much of an emotional load everyday as I did before. Not just worrying about clients getting drug treatment or going to prison, but also dealing with their families and prosecutors really wore me down. I feel like I’m using my bookish part of my brain more now, and I’m much less stressed. Personally, I am expecting less from certain friendships that have shown to not be supportive for me. And learning to meditate :)
I was the OP asking the last week about resources to think about changes in career and life. Today’s post suggests some books but I would like to know opinions about resources (books, webs, whatever) othe corp have used in the past ( I have an old version of the What colour is your parachute? but not quite sure if it is for me) Thanks!