should I quit my job |

When your job makes you sick

The founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, once said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.”

What we think, what we believe, reveals our deepest values. When somebody tells me they really want to change careers but don’t think they can, what they often mean is that they can’t afford to… because they believe that changing careers means trading their current income for something much less.

Fair enough, I get it, money makes the world go round, so their current income is more important to them than anything else…until it isn’t.

For example, the one situation where money becomes much less important is when a person’s health is jeopardized by their job, i.e. when they become too sick, physically or mentally, to keep doing a job, especially if the job itself is making them sick.

After 30 years as a career counsellor, I have seen this scenario play out hundreds of times. Many of my clients were forced to change careers due to severe back pain, neck and shoulder pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, cancer, heart conditions, depression, crippling anxiety, addiction, and other common conditions.

Those with health benefits often go on long term disability which often only delays the inevitable eventuality of having to find other work. But serious pain usually forces many of these unlucky individuals into a career change.

Either way, hard choices are involved because lifestyles will change one way or another; maybe for better, maybe for worse.

Henry Ford filed for bankruptcy twice before he was able to succeed with his Ford Motor Company. Clearly, thinking positively is not enough to guarantee success.

Ford had to make a plan, take effective actions, make corrections when things didn’t work out, recruit help from others when necessary, and keep going with a clear goal in mind. But, surely, thinking that he could do it must have helped him through some difficulties!

Making a career change means making changes in your life. That’s a simple fact.

Getting sick only forces you to make them.

If you’re healthy now, use your time wisely to create the changes you want!

Career professionals: whadda dey know?

The rate of people changing jobs has been growing month-to-month as the economy slowly recovers from its pandemic lows of 2021.

Information about work and skills is in high demand. But a labour market study published during November 2021 shows that only 1 out of 5 adults (of about 15 million adults aged 25-64 in Canada) make use of career services to help with their career decisions. The other 80% tend to rely on family and friends for career advice.

Not surprising, since most career decisions are private matters, and most adults turn to people they trust for advice during different stages of their lives:

– What to study while in high school.

– What to do with a diploma or degree after graduating from college or university.

– How to get out of the educated-but-under-employed rut.

– How to deal with job loss or long-term unemployment.

– How to advance in career once one is employed.

– How to change jobs or careers without a major loss of income.

– How to find a job as a newcomer to Canada.

– How to retire but keep working.

As a career professional for 30 years, I’ve encountered all these situations and continue to do so as many of my past clients refer their family and friends to me ( thank you! ) to advise them on these important transitions.

Help is available

Studies also show that people who use career professionals to assist with these decisions have better outcomes more often than people who rely only on family and friends for advice.

I get it…it can be confusing to navigate the career services ecosystem to find what you need at any stage in your life because there exists a complex set of services—some provided by schools, some by government departments or third-party agencies (funded by government), or non-profit agencies, or private sector companies, or independent practitioners (like me). The different career terms, supports and capacity used by these service providers adds to the confusion.

I am not the career professional suited for everyone. It is important for me to know if or how I can best help you. And to steer you in the right direction. I need to earn your trust.

That is why I do my best to read these studies, to engage in continuous learning, to update my credentials, so that I can provide you with reliable and accurate guidance about work and skills in this country and elsewhere. You deserve it!

Career change tip: Don’t make assumptions

According to many surveys, about half the working population is preparing to make a career change. We read stories about exhausted nurses and teachers leaving their fields. Or service workers going back to school for IT diplomas. Or senior executives cashing out to sell real estate.

Many individuals change careers for good reasons. But just as many make decisions based on assumptions that could lead them down the wrong path. For example, a good many people have come to me with the intention of going into HR because they want to have direct contact with people and help them. That’s a noble motivation, right? Yes, but most HR duties are about managing processes not people.

Processes or people

HR is about using software and systems to effectively and efficiently deploy a specific resource in an organization—that resource is called talent, or human resources. When employees actually need help for a work-related problem, such as managing their stress or mental health, they are most often referred to a third party. If you want to work directly with people, then consider working in an employee assistance program run by a third party provider.

We need to substitute our assumptions with a reality check. Before committing to a career change, verify that your natural strengths and motivations align with its core duties and responsibilities.

Let’s use the HR scenario again. If by “helping others” you mean meeting with employees one-on-one to listen to their problem, then advising them on their options and helping them choose and appropriate course of action–then you may not enjoy sitting in front of a computer all day using PeopleSoft or some other software to review payroll complaints from workers spread across the country.

If what you really want to do is influence the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of individuals towards some positive change, then identify which “jobs” in HR actually perform that function. Also, check to see what other careers are organized around that core activity.

You can make a better decision about a career change and what you need to do to make it happen with the assistance of my JOBJOY FOR LIFE™ Course.

Job change or Career change–which is right for you?

The pandemic has caused many people to re-evaluate their life priorities and surveys indicate that many plan on changing their job this year, some for a better or different job and some for a whole new career.

In terms of deciding what to do, it may be helpful to understand the difference between a job change and a career change.

Career is derived from its Latin root meaning ‘wheeled vehicle,’ which lent itself to the modern notion of a single, linear, vocational direction (the metaphor equating to: ‘following a particular path’ or ‘climbing the corporate ladder’), as working permanently in, or committed to, a particular profession, such as a journalist, nurse, teacher, police officer, engineer, and so on.

Job change is not necessarily career change; some job change involves promotions, or demotions, with the same employer, or a lateral transfer using similar or related skills with a different employer in the same career field.

For example, social media has wiped out many daily newspapers and magazines, and some journalists who’ve lost their jobs have made a job change to a Communications/Media Relations Specialist with a large corporation, a government department or a nonprofit organization. Instead of reporting the news, they now work to “make” news by having their employer’s activities reported as news.

A career change, by contrast, is more difficult and involves moving from one career path to something completely different; for example, a journalist becoming a home renovator as an independent contractor.

Job change or career change—which is right for you? It will depend on your aspirations, preferences and circumstances. Your strengths and weaknesses will need to be factored into your decision. It may be important to do an objective evaluation of the pros and cons of each strategy for your situation.

Career Repair: you already have the right tools

From our childhood to our current career, we tend to gravitate towards activities and projects that require our natural strengths. Why? Simple—we get pleasure from using our talents in situations that motivate us.

The problem is we do some things so naturally and effortlessly, we think, “Doesn’t everybody do it this way?” No, they don’t. You have a knack for achieving certain results using certain talents because that’s what energizes you—and you make it look easy. Other people might be able to do the same thing due to training or experience but it’s grunt work and drains them (they always wish they were doing something else).

Natural Strengths

For example, some individuals get energized by having an impact on the physical world. If there is a piece of equipment, or machinery, or a vehicle, or a household appliance that breaks down or is performing poorly, they repair it, or restore it to its original state. You can tell it energizes them because you can hear them humming, or whistling or singing, or just bouncing around happily as they do what comes naturally and easily to them.

If this talent is caught early in life and channeled into a particular vocation then recognized and rewarded by an employer, they might even end up with a long and happy career as an aircraft mechanic with an airline, or a pipe-fitter in a refinery, or a mechanic in the military, or a maintenance worker for public transit, or one of hundreds of jobs available from hundreds of different employers.

Even if they lose one job, they can quickly adapt or retrain for something similar in another sector because equipment, machinery, and vehicles will always wear out, or break down, or need replacing and require individuals who have a knack for impacting such physical objects with their natural talents and learned skills.

The same is true if you like to have an impact on people, or like to control how, when and where a project or plan will proceed. Or, if you are energized by pursuing and reaching a goal or a target. Or, if you get juiced by engaging in a process of discovering, developing or expressing.

True Job Security

Each general human inclination can be narrowed down to reveal your particular motivational pattern, and that pattern can be matched to dozens of specific jobs in specific work settings.

This is true job security. When you take the time to understand your motivational pattern then you don’t have to worry if you lose a job because you will already know what other sectors of the economy will recognize and reward you for what comes easily to you.

Don’t let our volatile economy catch you by surprise. Get a JobJoy career assessment done today so that you can do some long-term planning for real job security.

You already have in your hands the right tools to repair and grow your career. Put them to work in your favour.

You May Not Be Crazy for Changing Jobs

When I first spoke to Maria Ford she was the marketing communications manager for a semi-conductor start-up company, and a confused and distressed woman.

She was working at “yet another high-tech start-up,” her third company in four years. “It’s turning out to be another bad experience,” Maria lamented. She’d just walked out of “a very stressful meeting,” returned to her desk, opened up the phone book and looked under career counselor listings. She found me.

Sitting in my office, Maria opined that she had no support system at work. Her job was “getting engineers to relate a good story,” the only person in the company with that responsibility. “It seems like the engineers and a communicator, like myself, are two disparate species,” she said. “I feel like I am the “crazy one” on a daily basis.”

Maria had been doing a comparable job for similar companies for five years and thought the problem must be her. No matter what company she joined, she always had the same experience. In Maria’s words, “It’s not unlike the movie Groundhog Day. I wake up every morning and it’s the same struggle, day after day.”

To make matters worse, many of her friends were envious of her success. For her, the rub lies in the fact that, “I am really good at my job. Everyone loves my work, I’m making great money, I have a nice house and I’m highly employable. I look successful,” she added.

“My friends think I’m the poster child for English majors. I’m being rewarded for the job I’m doing, so it must be the right work. However, if this is success, I’m going to die very young.”

My work with Maria was very simple. Sitting across from me was a very talented, creative young lady, an excellent writer with a Bachelors and Masters degree in English Literature, trapped in a job misfit.

I pointed Maria to her authentic self. She was not being true to herself, the writer. She was listening to her social self – parents, teachers, peers and society – authorities in general. Here was a woman working with engineers who could not recognize or reward her for her natural writing talent.

Engineers represent logic, left-brain thinking and rationality. They typically don’t appreciate creativity and right-brain thinking. A semi-conductor company is comprised of people who spend their days thinking about circuits, ones and zeros. Maria spends her spare time writing poetry.

If you talk to Maria now, she admits she had no vocabulary for what was wrong. “I now realize that they weren’t bad people. The job was merely a bad fit for me. I’m a creative person and a communicator and I was working for and with engineers who communicate with math.”

In order to be true to herself, she had to find a work setting where her talents were recognized, appreciated and valued. At the time, she didn’t have the self-awareness to understand that her creativity was unique, but once she was able to, she created a life that focused on it.

Within eight months of her first visit to my office, she started her own company in Ottawa called Kaszas Communications Inc.. She utilizes her special abilities to communicate the differences and values a business offers to its’ target audiences.

The ironic part of Maria’s story is that eighty percent of her client base is still high-tech start-ups. Now there’s a big difference. What allows her to enjoy working with those clients anew is that she is able to structure her business in such a way that her services focus on offering what she’s good at and what she loves. She is able to say “no” to elements of jobs that aren’t good for her.

Maria’s job situation wasn’t unique. It’s important to be true to yourself, even when you’re being rewarded for not being true to yourself. Otherwise, you will pay a price – an emotional price. Not being true to oneself is a slippery slope to self-destruction.

Career Change Advice for Talented Women with predictable, boring, mundane jobs

Taba Cookey is an extremely talented woman who had immigrated to Canada from Nigeria to go to work in high level finance. She had earned her first degree in England and had got a Masters degree in Canada some years later before returning to Nigeria to continue her banking career.

She said that while she was in Ottawa looking to move from her job in financial sector research, she thought she should “take advantage of the kind of career consulting (that I offer) that doesn’t exist in Nigeria,” and explore her options for career change.
I had Taba write “her story”–eight examples of experiences that had been very satisfying for her throughout her life. They didn’t have to be job related.

What came up again and again is that she thrives with new competitive challenges that force her to stretch herself beyond anything she had ever done before. She also needs those challenges defined with deadlines and guidelines for measuring success. For example, she was usually one of the best student in her schools and was the only student in her graduate school class to complete her master’s thesis in time to graduate on schedule.

When she moved from Nigeria to London at age 9, she quickly established herself as one of the star sprinters in her elementary school. Before long, having run out of female competition, talk in the playground was that she should take on the fastest boy runner in the school.

“Finally, a date and hour was set. It was close…but there was no doubt about the result: I won, and that was the end of John’s bragging about how fast he was,” Taba said.

At some point during this career audit, she accepted an offer as Standards and Insurance Manager for a Canadian government agency that was charged with protecting consumers’ deposits in event of the failure of federally regulated banks and trust companies. She didn’t understand why at the time, but found herself so bored and frustrated with her job.

We figured out that even though her position at the government regulatory agency might be the perfect job for someone else, it was “just pushing papers” for her. Many jobs, including the one she was in at the agency, organized to be predictable and mundane and often become simple and boring for talented people like Taba.

Using “her story,” we determined:

* The work environment she would thrive in.

* The type of work she would thrive in.

* The way she likes to be managed.

* The way she likes to be rewarded.

* What motivates her.

* And how she likes to approach tasks.

“My work with George made me realize this sort of work was thoroughly unsuited to me” says Taba.

She began to seriously consider returning to Nigeria and we talked about the need for African ex-patriates to return home and use their knowledge and expertise in developing Africa. She decided to go back to Nigeria without any prospects for a job. I told her that she had lots of talents and people would recognize and reward her for that.

I think that one of the reasons ex-patriates don’t go back to their home countries after being educated abroad is because they’re worried they won’t get challenging jobs. I knew it wouldn’t be a problem for Taba because she has talents that transfer across borders. It was just a question of packaging her talents to be recognized and rewarded in different cultural contexts.

So we had to put her talents into a resume to show what this person could do for an employer anywhere–a dramatic example of how her talents transfer across cultures and borders.

She sent me an email saying, “An amazing opportunity opened up in Ghana. I am a Program Manager with the African Finance Corporation (http://www.africafc.org), based in Accra, responsible for overseeing all IFC leasing development programs in Africa. IFC is the private sector arm of the World Bank, promoting development through loans, equity and technical assistance to the private sector.”

A lot of businesses in Africa have difficulty in accessing traditional bank financing, and leasing provides an attractive alternative to such companies. The program aims to promote the role of leasing through training, public awareness, attracting new investment into the industry and working with the authorities in specific African countries to improve the legislative and regulatory environment for leasing.

This job is challenging for her because it is so varied and really stretches her capabilities. Also, she travels all over Africa and has to deal with different personalities in differing cultures. She needs to be in circumstances that stretch her, like beating the fastest boy in school.

“The other day I went through the life stories I had written and the analysis you had done four years ago now, and was amazed at the way it has all come together in my present job,” said Taba. “It is really quite uncanny. But then again perhaps not, since you had so accurately identified the kind of work and environment that would give me ‘jobjoy’ and I have finally found it. It is not surprising that I can now say without hesitation that I have never enjoyed work so much, and…yes, feel fortunate that I am actually getting paid for it. I come to work every day with a sense of anticipation, and hardly know where the time has gone at the end of the day. I actually have to tear myself away! This is such a change from so much of my previous life spent clock watching and day dreaming at work.”

When we get into a jobfit, other parts of our lives often fall into place. After a few years in this job, Taba returned to Nigeria in 2008 . “It is great to be back home, I think age is finally taming my itchy feet!” She was recently married, and took a new position with the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Congratulations, Taba, in putting down roots!

–with Nick Isenberg

Imagine working for a great boss every time!

Today is National Boss Day. 3 out of 4 employees report that their boss is the most stressful part of their job! More employees would prefer a new boss over a pay rise when it comes to improving their satisfaction at work. Ouch!

If you have a great boss, show your appreciation. Good or bad, bosses are a fact of life, and have been since ancient economies established master-slave relationships—the Pyramids were not built with collective agreements!

While workplaces today are (perhaps?) a little more humane, most of us have to navigate the power dynamics that go with any employer-employee relationship.

Some individuals are very flexible and can adapt to the operating style any boss. The rest of us actually have a preference for being managed. In fact, certain management styles bring out the best in us.

Operating Style of your boss can lead to conflict

I’m not talking about personalities here—whether your boss is warm, cold, two-faced, compassionate, analytical, judgmental, whatever. I’m referring to their operating style and the way that you, as an employee, best relate to authority.

For example, some employees need a hands-off relationship with a boss who allows them to exercise independent control over their specific area of responsibility. If they end up with a boss with a ‘directorial’ style—one who wants them to operate and perform in the manner the boss identifies as correct, appropriate, or most effective—then conflict is inevitable.

Without a clear understanding of this dynamic, we can get ourselves into a lot of hot water with bosses. As a career expert for the past 20 years, I have seen employer-employee conflicts played out in all kinds of scenarios…many of which could’ve been avoided or minimized if the individual—whether they were a boss or subordinate—had clarity about their preferred management style.

How do you prefer to be managed?

Most of us have never been taught or shown how to interview a potential boss for their preferred operating style, or how to negotiate with a boss in order to help them manage us in a way that brings out the best in us.

For example, if you function most effectively under a manager who provides you with initial support and direction at the outset of a new assignment of responsibility, then leaves you pretty much alone to carry it out…you probably need to learn how to tactfully help them do so.

But, if you get stuck with a micro-manager, you’ll have to grin and bear it, wait them out (the average tenure of a middle level manager is 2.5 years), or find another job–because this is a clash of styles that cannot be resolved through negotiation.

Many clients have described to me “a great boss” who provides intermittent support and direction at key points in a task, assignment, or responsibility. For them, the right manager offers assistance in making critical decisions. These individuals work best when they can count on their boss to have their back when unforeseen difficulties arise.

Others actually work most effectively with a micro-manager, a boss who provides continuous support throughout—touching base frequently and offering direction and advice when needed. But, if they end of up with a boss with a leader style, who prefers to paint the big picture and inspire others to follow him/her (or their program, cause, or mission) and leave the details to others, then they might dismiss this manager as inept or ‘political.’

Collaborate means to co-labor

In some cases, I have met clients who remember a single ‘great boss’ experience, followed by a series of bad bosses. A deeper analysis of their motivating situations reveals that they function most effectively under a manager who treats them as an equal, who works with them as though you were involved in a joint effort. In order to thrive at work, these individuals need an open-minded manager who has a genuine interest in their ideas and suggestions, as well as one who offers suggestions and advice when they ask for it or need it. When they don’t get it, they blame the boss.

Some even quit their jobs and go solo, only to discover they hate working on their own and need the dynamic of a workplace to bring out the best in them but they don’t know what that is until we do a deep analysis of their enjoyable experiences at work and outside of work. Then we discover they thrive in situations where they collaborated with others towards a goal.

Collaborate comes from ‘co-labour,’ or working together, and this kind of dynamic between employer and employee does not occur often, although when it does occur, interestingly enough, it tends to be a female boss who prefers to interact with subordinates in a participatory rather than authoritative fashion, preferring not to rely on administrative policies but on keeping others involved and keeping the momentum going.

There are bad bosses and good bosses in the world of work. But each of us can learn to better manage our relationships with authority by understanding what operating style used by a boss brings out the best in us. Then we can help create that at work or, at the very least, look for a manager who prefers to work with our preferred style.

Five Critical Ingredients For Successful Job Change

Current social and economic trends are forcing an increasing number of workers into job changes.

Many professional jobs, for example, that involve tasks that can be routinized or automated–including IT as well as accounting, even law–are being outsourced to firms in Asia, especially India and China, but also Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines. In North America, the number one workplace disability is depression and related mental/mood disorders, which forces many workers to voluntary seek a job change to protect their well-being.

Job change is the new workplace reality. Whether its voluntary or involuntary, most of us will have to learn to make effective job changes quickly in order to protect and promote our careers.

I’ve noticed in my own field of career management, I am increasingly learning new online technologies to increase my ability to provide high concept, high touch services to my clients. Providing personalized, customized reports on job matches for my clients is not something that can be easily routinized or automated.

Recent careers research, based on results employing 7725 participants and 62 career intervention studies (Brown, Ryan & Krane 2000), concluded that FIVE CRITICAL TREATMENT INGREDIENTS improve the effectiveness of career choice outcomes and decision-making.

1. Workbooks and written exercises. A JobJoy client usually writes out 8 stories about times in their life when they are doing what they enjoy most and do well, preferably stories about events/activities outside of work! This short 3 min video explains how, as does this short blog entry.

2. Individualized interpretations and feedback. Individualized feedback on test results, goals, future plans, etc. regardless of intervention format. I provide my clients with a personalized, customized JobJoy Report, a complete, accurate and reliable picture of their motivational pattern.

3. World of work information. My JobJoy Report matches a client’s motivational pattern to specific jobs in specific work settings. They are also given a strategy to move from where they are now into a better jobfit. I also use written materials that require clients to do their due diligence on job change, to write their goals, future plans, occupational analyses, etc.

4. Modeling. I insist that anyone can make a successful job change and earn more with better work-life balance. Yes, a job change is challenging…that is why I put a lot of emphasis on helping my clients conenct to other clients who have made successful job changes.

5. Attention to building support. This e-jobjoy newsletter is just one way that I provide ongoing support to clients but I try to help each client develop activities that will build support for their career choices or plans.

I use these five critical ingredients because they are proven tools and techniques for successful job change. Clients deserve not just any ol’ tool but proven effective tools. I take my responsibility, seriously, to facilitate proven methods that will match their strengths and motivations to specific jobs, in order to help them earn more and live a better story.

Too Creative For Tech?

During the past 20 years as a job change expert, I have met dozens of men and women in hi-tech careers with a passion for a creative activity.

The computer programmer who builds customized electric guitars. The senior network specialist who travels the country to compete in paintball. The ITIL specialist who hosts folk music concerts in his home. The software designer who provides black belt martial arts instruction to hundreds of students. The systems development manager who studies astronomy. I can go on and on.

But in every case, none of these individuals developed a new career, or even
a second career, around that particular passion. Everyone is creative, everyone
has passions. But not everyone can create a job out of their passions. Why?

Because it’s not about taking one particular activity/passion and building a
new career around it, like someone having a passion for sewing, and saying, “I
love sewing so I’m going to work as a tailor or a seamstress.”

The software programmer does not usually give up a lucrative job to eke out a
living customizing electric guitars, unless they had FaceBook shares they cashed
in during the IPO, or their parents die and leave them a fortune, or they win
the lottery….it happens, sure, but rarely.

The simple fact is that the earnings of hi-tech professionals are much
greater than what they could make with their hobby passion. That’s what holds
them back, the trade-off between having fun and having financial security. They
believe the two are mutually exclusive.

For years, they’ve been molded by what they do, and paid extremely well for
doing it. Even if they come to hate their work, they believe there only option
is to stick to their hi-tech job box. They want to bust out of the box but fear
negative consequences. It’s called a rut, which is sometimes described as a
coffin with the ends knocked out.

In the same way that the rut is linear, stretched out in one direction, they
think of their options in terms of the same left-brain, cause-and-effect
relationship. They see a line between what they do now and what they are
passionate about, and the connection does not compute.

They are focusing on the component parts of their lives, instead of looking
at the relationships between the parts. When they are doing what they enjoy
most—whether it’s building guitars, devising winning paintball strategies,
hosting folk music concerts, teaching martial arts, or studying astronomy—they
are engaged in a motivational pattern, one that is organized around their key
success factors.

It’s all about the pattern, the relationships between those factors that
energize them. Those factors can be defined, the pattern can be mapped. When
they see how their passion simply reveals certain aspects of their pattern, they
see how their talents and motivations match many kinds of jobs or careers in
specific work settings.

Instead of having one rather risky option organized around their passion,
they now have a dozen or more financially viable options organized around their
motivational pattern.

Busting out of the box is then possible. The dead end rut gives way to
shining path of real opportunity for a new kind of life, one that offers
financial security and job joy!