We are often held back from creating change because of our own limiting beliefs. These beliefs stop us in our tracks and try to protect us from taking risks. However, these beliefs are simply not true. Based on the experiences of six people from the Celebrating New Beginnings series who have made their own dental career changes, here are 5 Truths that can help you spark your own career shift.
1. It’s Never Too Late.
Rick practiced dentistry for 17 years before he took his first break from dentistry. After six months of traveling and relaxing, he realized even traveling and relaxing all day can get boring. Once he discovered that, he decided to go back to dentistry part-time, thinking his travel hiatus was all he needed to revive his love for dentistry again. After only a few months, he gained the perspective he needed and made the career shift for good. Think about it, 17 years!
Many people believe it’s too late to start anything new. That’s just a belief we use to keep ourselves safe.
It’s not true, and these people have proven that. Kristen practiced dentistry off and on for 19 years before she left dentistry to enter the mortgage industry. Cj left her job as an audiologist at the age of 56 and now does work that she loves!
2. We don’t always have to have every move planned out for it to work out.
I always thought I had to have everything in place before I left dentistry. When my boss asked me to start planning his practice buy-out, I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I didn’t want to lead him on, so I took the leap of faith and walked away before I was ready. Are we ever really ready anyway? I’m not sure I ever would have actually started my career shift if I weren’t forced into it. What a blessing that was, and even then it still took me 6 years shuffling through Plans B,C, and D to finally decide that coaching was my true calling.
David hits the nail on the head with this,
When is the right time to take the leap? Personally, I never found a right time. From our collective experiences, I learned that when I actually made the leap it created space that allowed new ideas, people and opportunities to enter, and the next steps seemed to arise spontaneously. Just start. The answers will come.
As you see, many of us don’t exactly know what’s next, and that can make it fun. Kristen currently works in the mortgage industry but now has so many other interests, that she’s open to whatever may come her way. She continues to keep her options open and embraces continual growth, confident this may or may not be her last stop.
Mark shares that “up until [I left dentistry] my life had been mapped out. It was a step into the unknown, but this brought with it a feeling of excitement.”
Letting go of the plan to have everything perfect allows us to trade out feeling stuck for feeling free.
3. The Sooner You Start, the Better. Just Go For it. Start Now!
At times Rick wishes he’d started sooner, but he also appreciates that his journey led him to where he is right now. He says,
If you’re unhappy with your job, start taking steps to make a change NOW. Of course, you probably can’t just walk away tomorrow…nor should you. You’ll want to do it right and that takes a little time to plan. But the good news is that once you start the process, you’ll immediately feel better.
David also acknowledges that for him “it certainly did not happen overnight.” Within a few years of starting his dental career, David became interested in counseling. He attended trainings and read several books on trauma early on. Not only did this help him to understand himself and his patients better, but also it organically developed into his future career from there.
He also adds,
If you are struggling to take the jump or make the transition, simply start taking steps toward your goal/dream/target, today. Just start. You don’t need the answers. The answers will come… Just start and have fun with it.
This is the knowledge we all have in hindsight, the one thing we wish we knew earlier and also want others to know.
It’s about the balance between doing some planning and starting the process even when you’re not quite ready.
Whenever I passed through a rough patch in my job, I’d become motivated to pursue my career change. Then as things always go, I’d pass into an easier time, and I would slip back into old habits. This cycle repeated itself for years. One day I found myself seven years in, beyond desperate for change, and I hadn’t set myself up to take any action. By that point it took me another three years to create my career shift. Had I been pursuing other interests all along, maybe that shift would have come more quickly, and I wouldn’t have had to endure three more hard years.
4. We Can Often Survive With Less.
I’d bet that the majority of us contemplating career change find money to be our biggest barrier. Mark says his biggest obstacle was money, but despite that, he resigned anyway. We now know it all worked out really well for him!
Kristen knew that she needed an income. Her dream was to do real estate development, but since she needed an instant paycheck, she used her flexibility to start a somewhat related career in the mortgage industry with a highly regarded company that treats her well.
Rick admits he is happier now making far less, and the trade-off is worth it.
It’s scary, I know, because dentistry offers stability and financial security. But it isn’t worth your soul, in my opinion. Don’t let fear control your life. There are many other ways to make a living, believe me. Yes, it will take some new groundwork, which requires a bit of time. And you might not be driving the same car or taking expensive vacations, but you’ll be happier knowing that you’re not a slave to a career that you were never suited for.
While it is important, most have discovered that it wasn’t as much of a barrier as they imagined.
5. Listen to your intuition. Don’t listen to the naysayers.
David’s greatest challenge was finding the courage to leave the profession despite knowing deep down that it was the right decision. While he felt torn knowing how hard he had worked to reach a certain standard and to earn a certain income, he also knew he had to listen to a place deep within himself. For him it seemed like almost everyone was telling him not to leave. He didn’t allow the typical responses like, Are you mad! But you’ve worked so hard!?! It would be such a waste! But, what about the money!?! to get in his way.
For him, his intuition came as signals from his body. When describing his counseling career he says, “The career feels different from dentistry in the sense that I experience it differently in my body. My body feels more aligned doing it. It doesn’t feel like an effort. Dentistry did.”
Mark was forced to listen to his body. He was literally getting sick. He says,
“To everyone around me I looked successful. I had a good job and it was enabling me to earn a great wage. However, I soon started to suffer with headaches or aches and pains that just wouldn’t go. You ignore these signs for a while just assuming you are prone to headaches. Then at age 27 driving in to work I decided I had to pull over. I stopped the car and burst in to tears. It was not just crying– it was an uncontrollable outburst of emotion. Basically my job in dentistry was making me ill. I was trying so hard to just put up and shut up with dentistry that my body had to tell me otherwise, that you can’t do this.”
Not everyone feels it in their body the way David and Mark did. Rick describes how he knew,
“Warning: you will have many detractors along the way who will give you unsolicited opinions as to why you shouldn’t do it. Not surprisingly, most of them will be other dentists (they’re just jealous). But if you’ve been following this blog with great interest, then it’s safe to say that your mind is already made up. Don’t let the haters deter you. Listen to the voice inside you—it knows what’s best.”
I guarantee you, every single one of us had a huge peanut gallery telling us what we should or shouldn’t do. We chose to do what was right for us by listening to our intuition. We can all silence that noise and connect with who we really are in our own way.
No one ever reaches this place without some serious soul-searching.
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