A funny thing started to happen after my friends and I turned 30. In varying degrees, we started to question our career paths. There were different catalysts for each of us. One of my friends realized that her job didn’t allow her to make a meaningful impact. Another friend felt as though she wasn’t being challenged intellectually and progressing in her role. Personally, I had a passion on the backburner that I wanted to invest more time in.
Regardless of the reason we start to question our career paths after hitting 30, I think the next steps are similar for everyone.
As a career coach, I advise people to reflect and learn about their strengths, as well as their motivations and core values.
Here are some questions to reflect on:
1) What aspects of your current career do you enjoy? What do you dislike?
2) What do you think your unique strengths are? Are you able to utilize and leverage them in your current role?
3) What are your core values? How do they connect to challenges you might like to help solve in your community, your country, or globally?
This set of questions can help you start to determine what kind of role or career path you can take that would be more fulfilling for you. People who are in their thirties now probably didn’t choose their education or career paths at a time when they had lots of life experience or self-awareness. Your thirties can be a wonderful time to reassess your career and think about what’s truly important to you, and how your unique strengths can be leveraged.
So, if you find yourself unhappy in your career or at your job – take heart. Your job is providing you with the resources that you need to explore what’s important to you. You can start by reflecting on the questions above, taking a class that’s interesting to you, or completing a strengths assessment. Small steps can take you a long way.