If You're Bored At Your Desk, Make 2018 The Year To Make A Career Change

Do your best to find that dream job and distinguish yourself from your competitors. Just make sure that your dream job pays enough.

Home. That’s where I spent New Year’s Eve. While just about everyone I know spent the last hours of 2017 celebrating with family and friends, I was finalizing client bills, organizing files, and adding up my business expenses for the month.

While this sounds like a punishment, I didn’t mind as I was a bit sick and didn’t want to go out during the unusually cold weather. The evening was relatively quiet (meaning no client calls) until the clock hit midnight. While I was getting some administrative work done, it gave me a chance to reflect on how I did during 2017.

In a nutshell, I did well financially. Almost anyone who contacted me became a client. Also, I was able to charge a reasonable fee to those of modest means but had compelling cases.

But at the same time, I was beginning to feel bored. The work didn’t interest me as much as it used to. Other things began to pique my interest. While this feeling may be attributable to my illness or a mild sense of burnout, I thought it was best to get some outside advice.

All of the people I talked to and all of the articles I read gave well-meaning but conflicting advice. Some said to follow your passion while others said don’t. Some people said to take a break while others said to get over it. The only thing I can do is pick and choose based on my personal circumstances and what I think is right.

While the advice I received went all over the place, they had some common themes which I will now share with you.

Strive to do what you enjoy. We all want that “dream job” where you enjoy the work and are paid well. In fact, you enjoy it so much, it doesn’t even feel like work.

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The problem is that many of these dream jobs are either pure fantasy or it takes a very long time to get if you’re running the corporate rat race. The positions will be competitive because your dream job is probably someone else’s dream job as well. And if a job is competitive, the wage will likely be lower as well.

The people who don’t believe in “following your passion” suggest that you become good at something practical and find a way to enjoy doing it. Of course, that is a lot easier said than done because we usually don’t enjoy doing something we’re forced to do in order to pay bills.

So do your best to find that dream job and distinguish yourself from your competitors. Just make sure that your dream job pays enough.

Maximize your connections. In other words, the N word: network. If you want that dream job, you will need to meet people who can guide you to the right place.

The problem is that without preparation (and sometimes even with preparation) most networking events will be a waste of time. And occasionally you will run into some real creepy characters.

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To make networking meetings more productive, you need to give people a reason to see you. Once they do that, people will want to get to know you better, follow up with you, and try to help you along the way. Otherwise, they will forget you before the sun sets. Try being a speaker or an organizer of an event.

Take care of yourself. All of the above won’t mean diddly squat if you are sick. Eat right, get adequate sleep, and walk around a bit. Fortunately, you can take good care of yourself through developing good habits, although it will be hard at first. Beginning a strict diet might feel like eating cardboard with vinegar as your body becomes hangry for whatever you ate before. Just doing 10 push-ups might make your shoulders and chest sore. But if you stay the course, you will get used to it.

As the new year begins, if you want to do something else with your career, you will need to do something about it. Figure out what you enjoy doing, and get to know people who work in the fields you are interested in. Otherwise, you’ll end up being bored in your office for another year.


Shannon Achimalbe was a former solo practitioner for five years before deciding to sell out and get back on the corporate ladder. Shannon can be reached by email at sachimalbe@excite.com and via Twitter: @ShanonAchimalbe.