Not everyone goes straight to being a digital nomad or entrepreneur. Throughout my travels, I have met a growing group of people that needed to make a transition from a career role.
Why Leaving a Career Often Feels Harder Than Building a New One
Most people don’t get stuck because they lack options — they get stuck because they don’t know who they are without the role they’ve been playing.
However, for many of these individuals, the transition was difficult. One of the most overlooked but difficult blockages has nothing to do with logistics or strategy, but about identity change. The longer someone has stayed in a certain career, the stronger they identify with it. Because of this, most people stay stuck and never end up chasing their dreams.
If you’re thinking of making a change in career or lifestyle, here are some tips that have worked for me and others that have made leaps that looked scary on the outside.
Listen to Your Inner Voice and Accept Change
Most people followed a traditional path, and no matter how safe it might have been, it often drowned out their inner voice. This inner voice, which is directed by intuition, is meant to bring people to creating a life and career that they are entirely proud of, something they don’t need to escape from.
If someone ignores their inner voice for too long, they could reach a breaking point where they are forced to change. Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat Pray Love” story, where a woman drops her whole life and family to go travel the world, is a good example of this.
The lesson here is that at some point, your intuition will start screaming at you, so it’s better to accept that change is a part of life. It’s better to make a change sooner rather than later, and to do so with intention.
Building a New Identity
Once you’ve accepted change in your life, it’s time to take that philosophy and apply it to your identity. It doesn’t matter who you are or what people have known you for, you can always make a shift into an identity that is aligned with your inner voice.
Sometimes, we care too much about what others think, and how they might judge us for constructing a new identity that’s more aligned with our true desires. To get over this, we need to remember a few things. The first is that the people who really care about us will encourage us to continue with our dreams. You’ll also learn that most people are too concerned with themselves to care about what you choose to do. Once you understand these things, you can start taking steps towards a new identity.
Let Go of the Old, Let in New Things
There’s a saying that the universe doesn’t like empty space, that if a void is created in your life, soon enough, it will be filled.
Contrary to popular advice, the first step to a new life often isn’t actually an action step, it’s the process of letting go of something to make room for something new to come in. The biggest thing that we hold on to is our identity.
So, letting go of your old identity could be the single most important thing you can do when it comes to changing your life for the better.
Whether this means a new job, a new location, a totally new lifestyle or all of the above, the first step starts within, with your intuition-led self paving the way.
