4 Ways to Start Your Career Change When You Don't Know The Destination

How to start, when you don't know where you're going.

A road stretches out into the distance with an unclear destination

Deciding that you're just DONE with your current career, can be both invigorating and terrifying.

Because the big question you can't avoid is, "what else am I going to do?"

And the uncomfortable truth is, you might not know. So how do you start the process, the journey, this momentous shift, if you don't know where you're heading and there's a completely unclear destination?

Let's break it down.

Unclear Destination Tip #1 - Redefine your goal

Instead of thinking - I need to move into accountancy by June next year (after all, you don't know what you want!) shift your expectations, your focus and your goal into something that welcomes and embraces this period of experimentation.

Something like:

"My goal is to be delightfully mistaken about 5 different career options"
"My goal is to hit at least 3 dead-ends and 2 genuine possibilities"
"My goal is to try things out and see if I like them"

This recalibrates the whole thing. You're not under pressure to land onto a magical bolt-of-lightening realisation and pinpoint your ideal role in a matter of weeks.

No, instead, you're saying - "I'm leaning into a period of discovery. I have all these assumptions about what different careers entail. I want to find out the TRUTH about them. I hope to be e.g. delightfully mistaken about the stereotypes I had built up in my mind, about 5 of the core career paths I am considering."

Unclear Destination Tip #2 - Become a detective

This is all about curiosity, and exploration.

You want to figure out both what YOU really want, and what roles might suit you.

Starting with yourself, get curious about what lights you up.

An exercise to discover your core interests might be to reflect on what you spent your time doing in childhood. What were you naturally drawn to? What would you spend your time doing, without being asked? What about that might still feel compelling to you now?

Perhaps reflect on what you would do, if you knew you couldn't fail. Why? What would it give you? That's your key driver.

As you unpack more about what you're looking for in a career, you have a stronger foundation from which to hold up different jobs and ask yourself "will this give me what I'm looking for?"

Similarly, adopt a curiosity posture when considering different roles. This might include doing a deep dive into research online. It might require you to cosplay as someone doing the role now, and get really into their world. What can you find out? The goal here is not to know the end outcome, but to see what you learn.

"Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on." – Steve Jobs

Unclear Destination Tip #3 - Ask everyone for help

We've all heard the phrase 'your network is your net worth'. Well, use it.

This doesn't have to mean going into stuffy conference rooms and making polite pitches (shudder).

No, just start with your friends. Ask all your mates, what they actually do.

Do they like it?
What does it entail?
What's the hardest part?
What do they wish they had known before starting?
What companies do they recommend you research?

If any of it piques your interest, go deeper.

You can also ask them if they have any friends, in any particular industries that you're curious about. Can they make an introduction for you? You want to be having as many low-stakes, simple, short, informational interviews with as many people as possible.

Unclear Destination Tip #4 - Remember, don't build the bars of your own cage

There's so many stories and scripts we bring into our careers.

We're someone who is good at this, or who can't possibly do that.

Try not to put yourself under pressure to conform to one single version of you.

You are allowed to grow and evolve. If you go into this journey automatically discounting things because, 'that's not something I'd be very good at', or 'I was always told to avoid careers in XYZ', then you are cutting out so many possibilities before you've even started.

An experimental journey where you try to find out as much as you can about different options, is a great space to let the different strengths and interests you hold emerge.

We all have so much capacity to try new things. Give yourself the space to find that out.

Need more help?

If you're looking for any help in this journey, check out my 1:1 Coaching programme Career Clarity Success. I'd love to partner with you along the way!

Always on your side