Tired of working 60 plus hour work weeks, leaving little time for you to enjoy your family? Stressed out and so tired by the end of a long week that you can’t find it in you to just relax and let go when the weekend rolls around? If you answered yes to either of these questions, and you feel that your job is cramping your lifestyle, perhaps it is time that you consider trading down.
What? You spent all of these years clawing your way to the top; how can you just give it up?
This idea may be hard for many people to swallow. After all, chances are you spent your twenties putting in long hours on the job, continuing your education and giving up great times of having fun because you had to work. Now you have a family and those long hours are taking time away from junior and the misses or mister, but how can you even consider ditching the 9-5 (or the 7-11) after having spent all of those long years working to get to where you are today?
The question should really be Why might you end up trading down for a job? According to the blog I read the other day there are several reasons. You might want to focus more on the lifestyle that you wish to lead outside of work rather than the one you are spending all of your waking hours doing in an office. If you can come up with a thousand reasons you need to wake up in the morning and go to work, and none for waking up in the morning and remaining at home, maybe you need to get acquainted with the down-time side of you once again. Forget what a hobby is? Don’t remember the last time you did something just for fun? These could be reasons to trade down the job.
Anther reason to consider trading down is to pursue something that you love. Oftentimes we begin our careers in our twenties, when we are still trying to figure out what it is that we really want to do with our lives. Pretty big expectations when you are barely legal to vote, right? We change over time, and perhaps during those changing years you realized that what you thought you wanted to do when you were twenty is not what you want to do when you are forty. If that’s the case, consider what you would like to do and write out a plan. Is it attainable? Could you retrain for something new both time wise and financially? If so, perhaps you should consider trading down.
Career changes require huge steps. If you are thinking of changing your career, speak with friends, family members, and your spouse. See what they think. You might just need to work less hours for a while to see if that makes a difference, or you may find that in order to be happy you really do need to make some major career changes.
If you have recently made a career change, let me know! I’d love to hear what you were doing, what you are doing now, and if the change that you made was a good choice.