Why Does Career Change So Often Feel Like Something Needs Fixing?
I received an email recently from someone who had apparently decided my website needed fixing. They’d spotted problems, knew exactly what was wrong, and, conveniently, had the solution ready to go… All super efficient…..
Except they didn’t know me. In fact they never asked what I actually wanted from my business, what was working well, or what I might already be perfectly happy with.
And I rather like my website, thank you very much!
Now, I’m not suggesting it’s perfect. I’m quite sure there are things that could be improved. But there’s something about being told what needs fixing before anyone has bothered to understand what you’re trying to achieve that really gets under my skin.
And it got me thinking, particularly about career change, and how quickly we can convince ourselves that everything we’ve worked so hard to build suddenly needs fixing.
How often do we do exactly the same thing to ourselves when it comes to our careers?
When did everything become a problem to solve?
Think about the advice we’re bombarded with, particularly when we’re considering a career change or looking for a new job.
Your resume needs fixing. Your LinkedIn profile needs optimizing. Your skills need updating. You need to reinvent yourself, become more visible, build your personal brand, get comfortable with AI, and somehow make yourself stand out in an increasingly crowded job market.
Good grief. It’s exhausting just writing it all down.
Some of that advice is useful, the world of work has changed, and the way we approach our careers needs to evolve with it, but I sometimes wonder whether we’ve become so focused on identifying what’s wrong that we’ve forgotten to ask what’s right.
Imagine you’ve spent 20 or 30 years building a career. You’ve developed skills, navigated difficult situations, built relationships, solved problems, and learned an enormous amount about yourself and the work you do.
Then something changes.
Maybe you’ve been laid off. Maybe you’re finding it harder than expected to secure interviews. Or perhaps you wake up one morning and realize that, despite having a perfectly respectable career, you simply don’t want to keep doing what you’re doing.
Suddenly, everything feels up for examination.
Perhaps you’re no longer relevant. Perhaps you’ve lost your confidence. Perhaps you feel like you are too old to make a meaningful change. Perhaps you need to start all over again.
But hang on a minute.
Just because something isn’t working doesn’t mean everything about you needs to change.
What if you’re not the problem?
I work with people who have achieved extraordinary things in their professional lives, yet somewhere along the way they’ve begun questioning whether what they bring to the table is still valuable.
Sometimes it’s because their job search isn’t producing results. Sometimes they’ve spent years in an environment that’s gradually chipped away at their confidence. And sometimes they’ve simply reached a different stage of life and discovered that their priorities are no longer what they once were.
None of those situations automatically means there’s something wrong with the person experiencing them.
It could be that the workplace has changed, or the way you’re looking for opportunities isn’t giving you access to the right ones.
Or maybe you’ve spent so many years working toward the next promotion, the next salary increase, or the next professional milestone that you haven’t stopped to ask whether those things still matter quite as much as they used to.
I think this is an especially interesting part of mid-to-late career change.
We’re often encouraged to think about what comes next, but not nearly enough about what we’d like to bring with us.
And there’s a difference.
You might want to leave your current role but keep the intellectual challenge. You might want less responsibility without losing the satisfaction of contributing something meaningful. You might be ready to step away from leadership but still want to mentor, influence, and share what you’ve learned.
You might even discover that you don’t want a different career at all.
You just want to experience your existing one differently.
Before you change everything, ask yourself three questions
I’m a great believer in asking questions before jumping to solutions. Not because we need to spend months analyzing every decision, but because a little curiosity can save us an awful lot of unnecessary effort.
So, if you’re feeling stuck, considering a career change, or wondering whether something in your professional life needs fixing, ask yourself:
1. What’s working that I don’t want to lose?
It might be the people you work with, the autonomy you enjoy, the problems you get to solve, or the financial security your career provides.
Perhaps you love your profession but hate your working environment. Perhaps you enjoy being part of a team but no longer want to manage one.
Be specific. There’s no point finding a wonderful new opportunity only to discover you’ve left behind the very things that made your working life enjoyable.
2. What isn’t working, and why?
This is where I’d encourage you to dig a little deeper.
If you’re unhappy at work, is it the work itself? The culture? The hours? The expectations? Or something that’s changed in your life outside work?
If your job search has stalled, is your experience genuinely misaligned with the roles you’re pursuing, or is there a problem with how you’re communicating it?
The distinction matters because different problems require different approaches.
3. What would I like to be different?
Notice I didn’t ask what job title you’d like next.
Of course, job titles and salaries matter. But try looking beyond those for a moment.
What would you like an ordinary Tuesday to feel like? What would you like more of in your working day? What would you happily do less of?
And perhaps most importantly, what are you no longer willing to compromise on?
Sometimes those answers tell us far more about the right next move than a list of job vacancies ever could.
Be curious about the advice you’re given, too
This brings me back to that email about my website.
The person who contacted me may well have been very good at what they did. Perhaps they could have improved my website’s performance considerably.
But without understanding what I was trying to achieve, how could they possibly know what success should look like for me?
I think the same applies when we’re seeking career change advice.
A resume writer should want to understand where you’re heading before deciding how to present your experience. A career coach should be interested in what matters to you, not simply where they think you ought to go next.
And the latest career tool, AI platform, or job search strategy isn’t necessarily the right one simply because everyone seems to be talking about it.
I’m not suggesting we should dismiss professional advice. Quite the opposite. Good advice can be invaluable, particularly when it challenges our assumptions or helps us recognize something we’ve overlooked.
But good advice should begin with an understanding of the person receiving it.
That includes understanding what they already have, what they value, and what they actually want to change.
Maybe you don’t need a complete reinvention
There’s a lot of pressure around career change to become someone new.
That comes with having a new professional identity or direction, or even a completely different version of yourself. Sometimes that’s exactly what someone wants, which can be enormously exciting, but sometimes the next chapter isn’t about starting again, it’s about taking everything you’ve learned, keeping the parts that still fit, and making more thoughtful decisions about the things that don’t.
You can be proud of the career you’ve built and still want something different.
You can appreciate the opportunities you’ve had without feeling obliged to pursue the same ones forever.
And you can recognize that something needs to change without deciding that you are the thing that needs fixing.
So, before you start rewriting everything, take a moment to consider what’s worth keeping…You might be surprised by how much you already have to work with.
Thinking about a career change?
If you’re questioning what comes next in your working life, but you’re not entirely sure where to begin, I’d be happy to have a conversation.
We can explore what’s working, what isn’t, and what you might want your next chapter to look like. Absolutely no assumptions about what you should do, and certainly no one-size-fits-all solutions!
Book a free 30-minute discovery call
Julie Vincent | Brand You Day
Career change centered on you.