A turning point in the career

A common, yet no less complicated story – you are approaching your thirties or have recently turned thirty, you have worked in the industry for several years now, have made a career for yourself, have settled in, grown connections and earned a reputation. It is all good but for one thing – you clearly understand that this is far from what you would like to do for the rest of your life.

Why does it happen?

Let's take a few steps back – to the moment when you were choosing the sphere you wanted to work in. Remember this time well. Were you the one who chose your path?

In our country there are several typical situations which can often lead to a break or crisis in career. For many of us the "lifetime project" is chosen by parents who "put their life" to arrange for our studies at the "right" faculty of a "prestigious" college.  At the age of seventeen not many of us know the answer to the proverbial question "who do you want to become when you grow up", and the paths taken by our parents come into play – "we are doctors and you will become a doctor", "we are lawyers, so you will be a lawyer too" along with the ideas of parents and people around us about the profession that "will definitely keep you alright". This is how many of us find ourselves on the way to a degree we never really wanted. And, gradually, gaining knowledge and first connections, people inertially start their careers in this profession. It's no wonder that when we grow up and find our own footing, we look back on our path and ask ourselves a question – is this what I really want?

Others become "hostages" of their first job. When we start working as college students, we often come not from interests and desires but from necessity – what kind of job can we find without any prior experience, that we could combine with college studies? This, often random, choice, becomes essential during the first career stage – we start crawling the career ladder, without really thinking about where it leads. And then, after a couple of years, we climb high enough to look around and understand that we were climbing the wrong ladder.

Yet, even if you definitely knew what your dream profession was since childhood and were persistently trying to get into it, you are still not immune to disappointment. In fact, the reason why you decided to think about the pointlessness of your career and want to change everything, is not that important. What is more important, is what you should do with that desire of moving forward.

First of all, let's consent – what is happening to you right now is not a tragedy. You may not be seeing this at the moment, but you already have a reason to celebrate – the sooner you stop to review your aims and desires, the shorter will be your path in the wrong direction and the less time you will waste. It may seem to you now that there is no way out, but what in fact is happening is that you have finally started looking for it and simply haven't found it yet.

Calm down. As cliché as it may sound, it is unwise to make any fateful decisions after a great deal of sleepless nights and anxious days.  One of my recent clients – a brilliant business analyst, a real guru of statistics, was so offended and indignant at the decision of his management to transfer him from transnational to national level in the company with the same position and salary, that in the heat of the moment he handed in his resignation a week before the global lockdown, sincerely hoping he would find a job within two weeks.  Unfortunately, two weeks were enough to change not only the employment market, but also the world. Had he come for a consultation before and not after the resignation, it would have been possible to mitigate the negative consequences. An old friend of mine was in similar circumstances several years ago in 2013 when planning a job transfer (from Donetsk to Kazakhstan) and assessing difficulties (a combination of Tower – one of the most ambiguous cards of Major Arcana, which means both war and force majeure, and fall of shackles, and the Sun – a successful completion of a project and achievement of goals). All after all, he moved but his native city and region were seriously destroyed during that time.

Before you take a decision, stop, take a breath – and then together we will review your desires, your assets – in resources, experience, connections – your goals and limitations. We will ask the cards about the things we don't yet know and the hidden resources and opportunities we have overlooked. We will ask ourselves what we don't know about the situation and the additional factors that may affect our choice.  We will dissect paths you can take moving forward and find out about positive and negative aspects of each of the choices. At certain moments in our life Tarot is the stone on the crossroads, which honestly says what you are to lose, if you turn right. And what you are to gain.

Do not live through the crisis by yourself, do not reproach yourself for the wrong choices – be happy that you have started moving in the new direction – perhaps, yet unknown but definitely leading out of a stalemate.

Luckily, we all live in the world where "the lifetime project" and "the only profession" are a thing of our parents' Soviet past, and the only sound answer to the question "who do you want to be when you grow up" is "I will be happy, I will decide how to do it as I go".