#careertransition – #8 of 8 | I recently went through a process of career exploration and made a significant career switch. This series of 8 posts is a synthesis of the lessons I’ve learnt.
As you navigate your transition, you’re going to meet a lot of people with a lot of strong opinions on what you should do. What’s right for you. What you’d be crazy to pass up. What you’d be crazy to take.
For what it’s worth, these opinions won’t be limited to the choice you make – they’ll even go down to something as seemingly benign as how much time off you take between roles. :-)
And many of these opinions will not make sense for you in your situation.
One of my go-to examples of really horrible career advice came from someone incredibly successful more than a decade ago. We spoke when I was living outside the US and really wanted to work in the Bay Area.
This person’s advice was simple – get to the Bay Area, spend a few months meeting as many people as possible, and convince somebody to give me a job. He said he knew a couple of people who did it as well.
This was high conviction advice from a person who had seen a lot of success in their career. And yet for somebody like me who didn’t have a US passport and who had just got married, it made little sense. What are the odds that this even works out? What happens to my wife and her career?
Since making the decision to leave my last role, I’ve spoken to many people – some of whom were upfront about wanting to leave too. A few of them, also immigrants, were upfront that it might be the right time from a career standpoint but not from an immigration standpoint. And I completely understand.
A couple of good friends went back to India for a routine visa stamping. At the last minute due to changes in guidance from the state department, embassies canceled appointments and rescheduled them many months later. For some, jobs were at risk – because you can’t be away from the office that long. A couple of friends had to find schooling for their kids for three or four months while they waited.
In another case, just as a wife found her way back to the US after months of waiting, her father-in-law passed away. Her husband, who was in the US all this time, made the gut-wrenching decision not to attend his father’s funeral – because who knows, he could be stuck there for months as well.
Can you imagine making such a decision? To not say goodbye to a parent because you’re worried about what it might do to your life? And yet I know of many who’ve made these decisions. During COVID. And right now.
I tell these stories because people who haven’t gone through this have no idea what it’s like to face such situations. And it’s so easy for them to give advice with high conviction without this understanding.
During times of transition, you’ll find yourself in situations where you feel like you need to explain yourself. You don’t. Nobody fully understands your circumstances. Only you do.
If you’ve given it thought, you’re making a bet. Make the bet. It may or may not work out. But it’s your life to mess up and your call to make. You have to do the work to reason from first principles and make a choice that you will be at peace living with.
Because ultimately, you are the one who’s going to have to live with that reality.
A Learning a Day 