3 Steps to Increase Your Career Freedom
Earlier this week, I read about a study Facebook conducted several years ago. Contrary to the adage, “employees leave managers, not companies”, Facebook found their employees tended to leave when they didn’t enjoy their jobs or felt they had limited career growth opportunities.
Interestingly, I talk with professionals all the time who dislike their jobs and aren’t satisfied with their career growth opportunities, but are paralyzed and unable to change their situations.
To them, career freedom seems unattainable.
Career freedom doesn’t necessarily mean changing career paths, starting a business, or leaving your company. Career freedom means freeing yourself from the things that hold you back, “Freedom Thieves”, to maximize your potential.
Three steps to make career freedom more attainable:
Make choices about what you REALLY want. We are complex people and have many wants and needs. Our conflicting desires can leave us stuck and unable to take action. For example, we want better work-life balance, and we also want the status and rewards that come with high-profile careers that require working nights and weekends. Choosing what we value most will help us get unstuck.
Acknowledge and confront your fears. Fears hold us back. For example, we know that bucking conventional wisdom and proposing new things could lead to greater success, but often we believe it’s safer to keep our heads down and go with the status quo. Usually, our fears are much worse than reality. Confronting our fears allows us to overcome them and move forward.
Get your finances in order. A poor financial situation makes it very difficult to take risks. Adjusting your lifestyle, getting out of debt, and increasing savings will give you more options.
While it’s not an easy road, taking these three steps will be a great start to banishing “freedom thieves” and moving towards career freedom.