What role does self-reflection play in a successful career change?
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Changing your career can be a daunting and exciting decision, but it also requires careful self-reflection. Self-reflection is the process of examining your thoughts, feelings, values, goals, and motivations, and how they influence your actions and choices. In this article, you will learn how self-reflection can help you make a successful career change using motivational interviewing, a skill that helps you explore and resolve your ambivalence about change.
Motivational interviewing (MI) is a collaborative and client-centered approach to counseling that helps people increase their readiness and commitment to change. MI is based on four principles: expressing empathy, developing discrepancy, rolling with resistance, and supporting self-efficacy. MI uses open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, and summaries to elicit and reinforce the person's own reasons and plans for change.
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Wasana Fernando
Research Assistant | Mental Health Ambassador
1. Motivation: Understand your reasons for changing careers. 2. Skills: Identify transferable skills from your current job. 3. Values: Align your new career with personal and professional values. 4. Goals: Set clear career change goals. 5. Obstacles: Address and overcome past challenges. 6. Confidence: Boost self-assurance in your career change decision. 7. Growth: Embrace personal development in the transition. 8. Network: Identify mentors and supporters in your network. 9. Decisions: Make informed career change decisions. 10. Adaptability: Acknowledge your ability to learn and grow in a new field. 11. Resilience: Recognize your capacity to overcome setbacks. 12. Progress: Continuously assess your adaptation and new career goals.
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Annmarie Spiciarich
Retired LEO, Author of 911 for First Responders
Without looking back to see where you went wrong/right, you will lower your chances of success and pursuing the work of your dreams. Blindly looking at salary and qualifications for a career leaves out the most important part: what makes you feel alive as a human and contributing to the world as a whole.
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MI can help you with self-reflection by creating a safe and supportive space for you to explore your current situation, your desired situation, and the gaps between them. MI can help you identify your strengths, values, interests, and skills, and how they align or conflict with your current or potential career. MI can also help you examine your ambivalence, or mixed feelings, about changing your career, and how to overcome the barriers and challenges that may prevent you from taking action.
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Diane Willock
🎯Accelerating Growth | Building and Driving Client Success | Turning Challenges into Wins | 📈Empowering Others to reach Professional Success through Effective Coaching and Strategizing |
Taking part in self-reflection when changing careers is extremely beneficial. Self-reflection reveals what your motivations, values, passions and goals are. It can point to what is truly important for you to have in that next career shift. This can help assure you that you are making a career transition for the right reasons and that you are paying attention to your self-care. You can go into your new career with a renewed sense of awareness and confidence.
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David Blaise
Formateur entretien motivationnel/Spécialiste HSE, QSE QHSE
When you want to change your career, usually it's because you felle bad in your current job. And when you are feeling bad, you are not in the best dispositions for taking the good décision. It's here that the MI can help you. It will help you to organize yours ideas, to write it on paper and takink a step back. MI is a good tool for taking the good decision during the hard moments of your life.
Self-reflection can be enhanced through a variety of MI techniques, such as asking open-ended questions that invite elaboration, affirming your achievements, efforts, and strengths, reflecting on what you hear yourself say, and exploring the pros and cons of changing or staying in your current career. For example, you could ask yourself "What do you like about your current career?" or "What are the benefits and costs of staying in your current career or making a change?" This can help you to understand your thoughts and feelings better and make decisions that are aligned with your values and goals.
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Dana Berri
Licensed Psychologist
Once key technique is asking open ended questions, such as what are the pros and cons of what I want? What comes to my mind when I think of changing my job? Where do I want to be in 5 years?
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Lawrence Stroup
MSW, LCSW, CFSW. --Healthcare Leader; Psychotherapist
Other questions we may find helpful to process could focus on examining how our values align with work practices. The identification of conflicts may assist in further evaluation of personal goals and strategies.
Self-reflection can help you create a realistic and achievable career change plan that matches your needs and preferences. You should use this process to clarify your vision and purpose for the change, identify your transferable skills, research and evaluate the opportunities, set SMART goals and action steps, and seek feedback and support from mentors, coaches, peers, or networks. Additionally, self-reflection can help you understand how to leverage or develop your skills for your new career, how to meet the requirements for it, and how to monitor and adjust your goals as necessary.
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Shane Puxley
Psychologist - Community Psychology Registrar
The most successful people I know use reflective processes proactively. They embed mentor discussions, journaling and reading habits into their routine. When valuing proactive reflective practice, their values, interests and skills become sharply defined. They have a clear sense of how different types of work can serve them and how they can benefit others. So, when big choices arise such as changing roles, these clinicians/coaches/leaders have clear anchor points readily available that help them to make informed choices.
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Dr. Twanna Carter, PCC
Career Coach empowering Black women to conquer impostor syndrome, find peace of mind & excel in their career | 20+ Years of Transformative Career Coaching |US Army Veteran 🔺1913 | As seen on New York Post
Self-reflection can help you identify patterns that exist in your career journey, that you're not necessarily aware of. For example, I had changed jobs five times. Nothing was "wrong" with the job, but I always got bored. This always happened at the 2-3 year point. I realized that I needed to be constantly challenged in order to stay engaged. I also realized I couldn't afford to retrain every time I changed jobs! This realization led me to pursue an advanced education degree that was broad (I have a PhD in Human Services). Which meant that I could change careers as many times as I need to as that field is very broad. And I could transition without losing pay or position. Now I run two companies, both in the Human Services field.
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Self-reflection can be a powerful tool when making a successful career change. It can help increase your self-awareness and confidence while reducing self-doubt and uncertainty. It can also enhance your motivation and commitment, while reducing resistance and procrastination. Additionally, it can improve your decision-making and problem-solving skills, while reducing stress and anxiety. Self-reflection enables you to learn from your experiences and outcomes, and celebrate your progress and achievements.
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Shriya Das, MS, MSc
Clinical Trials Project Management | Clinical Research | Healthcare
self-reflection can reveal whether your current role still aligns with your initial motivations and aspirations. It's essential to periodically assess whether your current career path is fulfilling and if it's helping you work towards your original inspirations and goals. If not, it may be a sign that it's time to consider a career change or make adjustments to your current path.
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Lisa O. Ike-Alvarez, Psy.D., MA
Helping organizations and leaders create psychologically rich work experiences. Human Capital Consultant| Change Agent| Leadership Coach| Learning Designer
In today's competitive market, it is common to feel the urge to jump to the next "shiny" job opportunity that often captures our most felt need: money. However, taking a moment to step back and dig deeper, to reflect, contemplate, and notice alternate desires will reveal a deeper purpose. You may find your values have shifted, and your inner direction leans more towards social responsibility. Or, you may still be interested in a specific salary and position, but your renewed value system may limit what you're willing to compromise on. Reflection may not solve problems, but it builds our capacity to make more informed career decisions and revise assumptions that previously limited our ability to do meaningful work.
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Adrienne Hallett
Global Policy Leader at Cambrian Bio with executive level NIH and Senate Experience
I just shifted careers after 25 years. Self-reflection is critical, but it doesn't stop when you take the new job. If the shift is significant, it takes a while to adjust to a new culture, new norms. You have to grow and adapt. All of that takes a lot of reflection.
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Dr. Twanna Carter, PCC
Career Coach empowering Black women to conquer impostor syndrome, find peace of mind & excel in their career | 20+ Years of Transformative Career Coaching |US Army Veteran 🔺1913 | As seen on New York Post
Don't be afraid to ask others for feedback, even though self-reflection is important. Johari's Window teaches us that understanding our blind spots can lead to deeper self-awareness.
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