It’s the New Year, and many people around the world are now battling themselves to stay true to their New Year Resolutions. I don’t do NY Resolutions… not any more.
In my case, and I believe it is the same for a lot of us, they are like a millstone around the neck, sometimes made in a rushed and misguided manner in the last few days of December, that then haunt me through the rest of the year.
Believing that one will be able to change some fundamental aspect of their personality within a year is probably like believing in Santa Claus. It just takes longer to realize that doesn’t happen.
But despite the above, I do like to reflect in the New Year. Actually, I like to invite all three Dickensian ghosts in, and have a chat with all of them about the previous 12 months.
I’m sure you do the same: it’s when you take stock of what happened, where you are at the moment, and if it doesn’t fit your desires, make a plan to change it.
In my case, the last two years have been bright. I changed my career path considerably, by taking a number of risks that so far have been worth it. Namely, to put it in perspective:
- I started working for a start-up, which I hadn’t done since I left college;
- I decided to learn and work with a new technology that may not have a future, and half the world doesn’t know exist (I’m being generous here);
- I created a blog to write about it;
- in my 40s.
I put that last line in there because it is very relevant for this post. See, after this long introduction, I don’t really want to talk about me. This is not about gloating of a choice well made, or rueing a bad decision.
It is about coming to you in the New Year and announcing you could do the same. See, in this blog I am most often the Mentor, that guides you, brave readers, down explorations in arcane maths or quirky programming languages. Today, though, I want to be the Herald, the bringer of adventure.
Changing Careers as an Adventure
Changing career is an adventure. And I mean this is in a very literal sense. When you match it to the Hero’s Journey, it’s pretty much all in there.
The first step is the Call to Adventure, issued by a Herald. This is an incident or figure that comes to yank you from your comfortable Ordinary World and drag you into faraway and dangerous lands. Think of the dwarves suddenly bursting into Bilbo’s house.
And very commonly, the first reaction is to refuse, and prefer to stay home. This is the Refusal of the Call. Going away and brave the unknown is always daunting, and can be rather inconvenient, to say the least.
But a Call to Adventure does not simply happen. If you feel the tug to depart, to change something radically, it’s because something in you is predisposing you to do so. There is conflict within, there is a possibly repressed need of change: the Refusal is not absolute nor passive. If you feel this, a little more convincing may start you down the path.
Unless you’re fortunate, you may see this everyday. You’re tired at work, you don’t like what you do, you wish you had another job, or worked in the City, or had studied AI, or indeed, Blockchain instead…
Hmmm… could you still do it? Could you learn it at night in an online course? Or go into a few Bootcamps?
There are many resources out there if you want to start learning for yourself. If you don’t know anything about blockchain, starting with the basics is a good idea. I hope my own blog can teach you some things and in time cover all the basics, but for a starting point, looking at what employers are looking for may be a good first step. I find that Toptal, a company that helps place freelancers, has some clear and detailed guides that could help you there.
Refusing the Call
It is well known that many, many films in Holywood follow a structure that is taken straight out of ancient world mythologies. The most famous example is, perhaps, Star Wars. But when Joseph Campbell first discovered that structure and wrote about it, he based it on the underpinnings of Carl Jung’s Psychology. It’s perhaps then not a surprise that many things we go through in Life seem to follow the same stages and steps.
At its core, the Call to Adventure is the realization of something that is not working for us and the need to go out and correct it. Our current status quo, the things we’re familiar with, is our Ordinary World, and it is invariably in need of fixing.
This can be many things. Perhaps you need spiritual healing of some sort; perhaps you are stagnated in monotony and have no prospect of improving your job, social circle or even a decaying neighbourhood; perhaps you want to settle down and grow a family; perhaps you feel you’re destined for great things and it’s now time to go to University or find a job in the Big City.
Or, in what concerns this post more directly, perhaps you see your career no longer provides opportunities for advancement. It could be because the technology is old or becoming superseded by newer things; or that it is so vibrant that it is over populated and there is too much competition.
Or simply you have lost the drive, the interest. You’ve reached the top and there are no more challenges for you. At any rate, you feel the need inside to change.
There is one thing, in all these different situations, that I pretty much guarantee you’ll eventually feel. Fear! The uncertainty about the change. Doubts over your abilities, and knowing whether you’ll be good enough to overcome the new challenges. More even, doubts if you’ll even deserve the rewards that may come with that change.
If that sense of unease in your current world is the realization you need change, and may suffice on its own as a Call to Adventure, Fear of change is the ever-present, and very human, factor that leads to the Refusal of the Call.
In stories, it is typical for the Hero to be so afraid, or conversely so apparently comfortable, that he does not make a move for himself. He does not acknowledge the signals, refuses them, and ignores the prompting to adventure.
But the need for change remains, until a spark comes and ignites the crisis. It could be someone banging at your door telling you the Dark Riders have left Mordor and are coming to the Shire, or Hagrid rescuing you from a life of normalcy and misery.
In ther real world, your company could simply close and leave you without a job. Such events will leave you no choice but to take action, but it is perfectly possible to jump on the adventure without further prompts, if the Hero is eager enough.
Accepting the Call
I know it’s a big decision to decide to throw away years of expertise and start again. I’ve been there… more than a couple of times. But you don’t need to go gung-ho radical about it. There are often opportunities to stay in the same industry and merely change fields, or responsibility.
For example, if you’re an IT developer, you may decide to learn a new language or paradigm; or become a front-end developer instead of a back-end one. You could also angle your career to becoming a manager or people specialist; or even learn more about the business and commercial side. Your may end up looking for more interactions with clients, and enter a possible path to Sales Director
Today, you can decide to study blockchain and start working on it. It will likely require learning one or two new languages and definitely new concepts, but that is a very small change if you can already code in a number of languages.
Sure, many things are different, and you may not like the quirks of the new languages, but it is definitely easier than going to medical or law school and starting again.
There is one crucial aspect you have to consider in all of this: Time. In ancient myths, there is some times a sense that time does not move. If the potential Hero does not take to the adventure, things will stay the same and that particular evil will not be resolved.
The eternal oppression of the Evil Empire will go on for a little longer until another Hero accepts the call. The Wasteland will remain desolate and the Fisher King in agony until another Knight is found worthy and finally reaches the Grail.
But when the Adventure is your life, the perspective is reversed. Now, it’s not about how many heroes will refuse the call. You are the Hero now, and the question is how many calls you will receive.
There is an optimal period for everything. In terms of changing careers, it may seem that early is better: you probably still don’t have strong family commitments; the tolerance to failure is high because you’re still young and inexperienced. If you’re lucky, you may have a network of friends and family subsidizing you at this stage.
This is a good time to experiment, to acquire some base skills, and for example travel. Also, this is the time when you are building your own Ordinary World that you will want to escape at a later in life. It’s unlikely you’ll have great rewards at this stage (although you could be lucky and score big with an early Apple- or Google- like startup).
I personally find that the time when it most matters to decide whether to accept a Call is in your middle career. Say, your late thirties / early forties. Normally, you’ll be a senior by now, with considerable experience, but also increased financial responsibilities, with a growing family and all that entails (the search for a school and a safe environment to live).
And forgive me for being dire here, but you’ll also be closer to the beginning of your physical decline. This is the golden period where you are at the apex of your skills and knowledge. And this may be the last chance to maximize them for a good retirement.
Evaluate what the future looks like. If you are in a safe area that will remain solid for at least another 10 years (and who can say that?) then perhaps you should stay there and extract as much worth from your job as possible aiming for an early retirement (if you can make it).
But if you see the signs in the horizon that other technologies are bypassing you, or may make your skills obsolete, then be careful. Remember, at this stage, you’re still young and, again, at the apex of your skills and knowledge. You can still change. You still have the capability, but it may not last long now. Think carefully.
Managing Change
It was not my intention to be bleak when I started this post. This time of the year is propitious at looking at the future and imagining the good things we’ll reap in the year.
But every big choice comes with risks: both the risk of facing the unknown, and the risk of staying behind and missing the opportunity to change and improve. There is often a lot of focus on the first set, but we tend to ignore the second. Humans are resistant to change, after all.
This is obviously a personal choice, first of all conditioned on the availability of opportunities and their nature. If the only choice to change career is to move to another country, then you’ll want to do it as early as possible (maybe a topic for another day). And I’m not here to tell you whether you should take it or not, how to look for these choices or negotiate them. I’m afraid that is not my set of skills. But I’d like to make you aware that changing skillset is a possibility that not many like to consider but can be feasible.
Try to take a shortcut if you do it, by not straying too much from what you can already do. Teach others instead of doing yourself; become a manager; move horizontally, into technologies at least superficially similar to what you already know.
But make sure you do it early enough. At some point, and especially in some countries (like, unfortunately from my experience, southern Europe), your age alone will be a disqualifier for any new job, even if you’re knowledgeable and experienced.
The antidote to this is to be the only knowledgeable and experienced expert in that field, which by defnition means that such field must be some new area.
So, if you’re in this situation, and you feel the magic wisps of adventure seeping inside you, give it a thought this year, and don’t be afraid. Embrace the opportunity if it knocks on your door, and assess whether you feel young enough to embark on a new journey.
May you be fortunate in your travels.