by Audrey Taylor
Introducing change, no matter how minor, takes a lot of courage, open-mindedness and willingness to adapt. However, above all, it takes a lot of willingness to learn and self-improve. Making a lateral move is never an easy thing, for instance, a person wanting to try their luck as a programmer or developer absolutely has to learn how to code, regardless of their previous portfolio.
Still, this minimum skill requirement usually differs from industry to industry. On the other hand, there are some skills that are necessary simply due to the fact that you want to change your career, regardless of what your previous vocation was or what your future career is going to be. That being said, there are several skills required if you want to change your profession.
Changing Your Career Tip #1: Active listening
You would be surprised just how bad some people are at listening. Both logically and chronologically, we were supposed to learn how to listen long before we learn how to talk but, in reality, some people never actually learn how to actively listen. Because of this, they lose the string of thoughts that they are supposed to develop the conversation, lose the interest of their conversation partner and miss out on a vital piece of information. You can imagine just how bad practice this can be, especially in situations where you need to adopt new knowledge or a business practice from a person that’s been longer in this industry than you are. All in all, the skill of active listening is something that you will find to be of use in general, regardless of the situation you find yourself in.
Changing Your Career Tip #2: Charisma
Another skill, people falsely believe to be innate is – charisma. However, according to Robert Brault, charisma is not just saying hello, it’s dropping what you’re doing in order to say hello. You see, there’s a lot that can be achieved by being genuinely interested in people and this kind of behavior is bound to give some of this back. Keep in mind that charisma is a vital component in networking, which is something you would absolutely have to learn how to do when entering a completely new industry. As you start climbing ranks within your new industry, the better your people-skills (charisma) are, the greater your odds of being an effective leader become.
Changing Your Career Tip #3: Willingness to move
Sometimes, in order to pursue your dreams, you have to be ready and willing to step outside of the box. Moving to a different country or continent sometimes opens up a whole new array of possibilities related to your industry of choice, which means that it might be completely necessary in order to live up to your full potential. Still, there’s more to moving than just being willing and ready to do so.
For starters, you need to think about the immigration law. So, if you plan to move to Australia, you might want to look for local Immigration lawyers as your allies. Apart from this merely transferring your belongings to a different city may be an arduous job, let alone a different continent. Keep in mind, however, that you might be compelled to move several times (for the sake of your career), which is why it is so important to develop and nurture this skill.
Changing Your Career Tip #4: Planning, organizing, and prioritization
Proper planning is a key to succeeding in any given industry, which is something worth keeping in mind. No matter what line of work you decide to start in next, there are simply too many aspects and areas of your future tasks that you have to master but you tend to start with some basics.
Learning how to recognize these basics, even prioritize among them is something that is incredibly important for your overall orientation. This will help you become workable in no time, which opens up an opportunity to start actively learning as soon as possible, even test some of your knowledge early on.
Changing Your Career Tip #5: Courage
Like with the situation with charisma, you need to understand that courage is not something that a person is born with. Sure, some people are innately more courageous than their counterparts, yet, in order to develop real courage that you can depend on, you need to constantly push your limits. Just a decision to make a career change is a huge step in the right direction, yet, it is only a beginning. By thinking outside of the box and constantly stepping outside of your comfort zone, you will get accustomed to these ever-changing circumstances, which is exactly what you need.
Changing Your Career Tip #6: Passion
What you need to understand is that no one likes absolutely every single aspect of their job. No matter how ideal it may seem from the outside, even the most exciting occupation becomes mundane at one point and even the most creative job in the world eventually becomes repetitive (at least in some aspects). So, in order to keep this passion, you need to learn how to appreciate those aspects of your job that got you interested in this industry in the first place.
Changing Your Career Tip #7: Open-mindedness
The last thing you absolutely need in order to make such a radical change turn into a success is to learn how to embrace things you would normally avoid. In fact, a career change often comes with all kinds of new and unique experiences, however, in order to fully enjoy privileges that come from them, you need to learn how to be as open-minded as possible.
In conclusion
Finally, you need to understand that a career change isn’t a simple shift in your main source of income. It is a change that affects nearly every aspect of your life. The way you think, the way you act, people you spend your time with and even how you spend your free time will all be affected by this simple change. Whether or not your efforts here will become a resounding success or result in an utter failure mostly depends on your ability to embrace above-listed seven skills.
Photo: Pexels
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