How to Change Your Career After Having a Set Routine for Years

When you’re used to doing the same thing at work day in and day out, just going to a different shift or a new department can cause your body to react in strange ways.

Changing careers after being at the same place for a long time can also cause the same kind of reaction. People make a career change move when they become bored, have concerns about job stability or just want to embark on a new part of life. After your body and mind have become set in its ways, making a major change can cause sleep issues, problems with anxiety, and overall turn your world on its head.

Also read: Mentoring And Choosing Your Career Path

Read below for more information on how you can make a big change in your career without needing to alter your entire lifestyle.

Make Accommodations for Your Career Change

Say that you’ve always worked a 9 to 5 shift, causing you to get up super early so that you can contend with rush hour traffic. You might always look forward to having the weekends off, sleeping in on Saturdays and having a nice dinner with the whole family on Sunday evenings.

If you make a change in your career that causes you to work nights and on the weekends, you can also expect that your set routine will be a bit different than you remember. It might not be so bad to have a different day of the week off, like Mondays, instead of Saturday and Sunday. And if you are accustomed to eating a big meal with your family every week, there’s probably another day that is just as well suited as Sunday, if not even more.

In other words, you should expect changes to come when you transition careers.

Embrace the Change

Sometimes people can be highly enthused about a career change from being CNAs to restaurant managers, for instance. It might not be until you interview for a job in your new career that you begin realizing that your work hours are going to be different, the setting is going to be in stark contrast to what you’re used to, and there’s not much room for negotiation. You really have to try to embrace these major changes if going into a new career is going to work for you.

Also read: How To Handle Change In Your Life

Even if you have been doing the same kind of job in a single industry for decades, you can adjust, and it doesn’t have to be far worse. Just embrace the change and go with it for a while. Eventually, you will adjust, and you might find that you like your new workplace, setting, and work hours better than before.

Listen to Your Body

Going from working all night in a security booth to reporting to a call center job bright and early is going to take at least a small toll on your body. You might even need to be deprived of sleep for a few days before you can finally force your body to adjust to a new schedule.

On the other hand, you should be mindful of pushing your body to do things that it truly doesn’t like. For example, homeschooling your children during the day only to report to a job at night simply might be too much for you.

Be certain that you can get the sleep that you need to function properly on your new shift and don’t feel bad about talking to your supervisor if the transition hasn’t worked out the way that you expected.

Network Before You Change Careers

The best way to get information about a career you’re interested in but not fully sold on is meeting up with and speaking to people who are already in that line of work. Thinking about going to culinary school? Talk to everyone from the front of the house manager to the sous chef.

People who want to change over to a career in real estate need to talk to friends who have recently purchased homes, realtors, and brokers alike. Things can make a lot clearer prior to enrolling in school or putting in your two weeks’ notice.

So, do the research, network with individuals who have the careers that you want and analyze their feedback as objectively as you can.

Expect the change to feel a little weird at first, and fully anticipate being a bit tired for the first few weeks. You have to meet your coworkers all over again, get accustomed to a new boss, and go to work in a brand-new environment. Realize that change is never a bad thing – it’s all in the way that you approach new situations in your life and overcome the biggest challenges. If you can transition careers after being established where you already are for decades, then there’s nothing in your career that you aren’t capable of.