When you hit a career low, it can seem nearly impossible to know how to recover. The good news is that when you have hit an all-time low, you have nowhere to go but up. If you want to delve into the truth a bit deeper, hitting a career low can be incredibly liberating because it sets you up for infinite possibilities.
You can be anything and do anything you want. When you hit a slump, it’s time to take some action. Here are 10 things you can do when you hit a career low.
1. Learn Something New
It’s always a good idea to continue to learn something new. As times change, so does technology. Businesses need to keep up with these changes to stay in demand. This is why it’s important to continue to learn all you can about your chosen field. If you like what you’re doing in your career path, stay with it. Look into additional training and classes you can take to advance your career. However, don’t let it stop you from learning about other forms of work. You may adopt certain skills or procedures from other types of work that can help you with your career.
2. Get Creative
When you hit a career low, it can be from a lack of creativity. If you feel like you’re just going through the motions, it’s time to develop passion and excitement in life again. You can invoke creativity in a variety of ways.
Within your home, you can organize it, paint the walls, purchase things for your home in the colors that make you feel happy, excited and optimistic. Organizing your home helps to organize your thoughts. Decorating your home helps to get your creative juices flowing. Surrounding yourself with vibrant colors that make you come alive will continue to spark your creativity.
Do something you have never done before. Try out a new food you’ve been curious about. Write with your left hand if you’re a righty. Listen to music you have never heard before. Learn how to play an instrument. Another thing you can do is to do something you normally do but in a different way. If you regularly walk down the street to the store, try going down the street sideways or backward if it’s safe to do. Add cinnamon to your morning coffee. All of these suggestions get the right side of your brain active, which will help you with creativity and problem-solving. Continually look at life in a different way, and you’ll notice that you’ll start looking at work and other matters in life in a completely new way.
3. Set Goals
Whether you want to go for something big or something small, it’s time to make some goals. Life can get stale when you hit a career low. Setting goals is a way to establish progress in your life. A small goal can include waking up earlier than usual to journal, enjoy the sun coming up or committing to 30 minutes of exercise a day. These small goals can have a huge impact on how you think, feel and respond in life.
Working toward a large goal can help make positive changes in your life too. Larger goals can help you to work hard toward something amazing and create the momentum you need to excel in life. A large goal can involve a dream vacation where you do everything you’ve ever wanted. Your goal doesn’t have to be career-related, but a career related goal would directly propel you to success.
4. Consider a New Field
At times, people hit a career low because they’re bored in the field they currently work in, or it might be a career they never wanted in the first place. Whatever the case, getting into another field can help to make huge changes in a person’s life. Ideally, you want to think of something that you would love to do and something you can make a decent living doing. It’s not hard to do, but you need to think of what you’re passionate about. You can turn just about anything into a business. Think about anything you see today. Delivery services, apps and driving services developed out of a need. You have something special in you that you can turn into a business if you think enough about it.
5. Perform Regular Self Assessments
Your career low can help you to change and grow. Let it. Never stop learning about yourself. With every struggle, you will see something new about yourself. You can be sure that going through a career low brought out things inside of you that you’ve never seen before. Rather than beating yourself up about what you did “wrong,” take it as a learning experience.
Granted, there are things you wish you didn’t do. We’ve all been there. The great thing about discovering these things is that you don’t have to repeat the same mistakes, and they can help to make you a better person. Consider how you’d handle things now. Take time to heal from anything that caused harm. Admirable traits come from facing struggles, overcoming them and allowing yourself to learn from them.
6. Consider Self-Employment
There is nothing like self-employment. It’s the ultimate freedom. Some people are afraid to work for themselves because they believe a nine-to-five gives them security. There’s no guarantee that people can’t lose their jobs, but you can guarantee that you won’t fire yourself when you work for yourself.
If you can be committed to learning whatever you need to know about working for yourself and can be committed to putting in the work, you can be successful at whatever you choose to do. You just need to consider what it is that you love to do. Once you have done that, you need to set up a schedule, get supplies and anything else that’s needed for your business.
7. Seek Objective Feedback
It can be hard to see things about yourself sometimes. You need a few good friends who aren’t afraid to tell you “like it is.” It doesn’t mean you seek feedback from someone who is rude. On the contrary, you’re looking for a loving person who will tell you the truth about yourself. Spend some time talking to them and listen to what they say. Explore these things on your own at a later point. Get down to the “why’s” to discover why you are the way you are.
You might have some self-sabotaging behaviors that get in your way. Self-sabotage can get in the way of your success without you being aware of it. Think of all the ways you can make a positive change in your life by changing negative things you discover about yourself.
8. Get Physically Healthy
Physical health has a huge impact on your quality of life. You might not see the connection between physical health and your career, but the two influence the other in a huge way. Physical health impacts your mental health and how you feel in life, in general. How you feel affects your career. Your career impacts how you feel. Stress and depression can lead to sickness, fatigue, insomnia, pain and more. Eating well, drinking an adequate amount of water, sleeping well and getting regular exercise will help your body to feel better, but it will help you to feel happy and think more clearly.
Exercise releases hormones that lift your spirits.
9. Get Mentally Healthy
Hitting a low can certainly make you feel stressed and depressed. This can hit when you’re already battling many things in your life. There are several ways to get mentally healthy. You can attend group meetings, go to a counselor, journal or read self-help books.
What you’re looking to do is heal from past hurts, forgive others and yourself, develop self-love, perform self-care and do other things that will promote your well-being. When you’re mentally healthy, you will be emotionally healthy. This will help you to make smart choices in life, which will lead to a higher quality of life. This will also create a life where you go after what you want because you know that you deserve it.
10. Make New Friends
Life can seem depressing without a few good friends. When you hit a career low, you tend to feel rejected, and you might believe that no one likes you. When you make new friends, you tend to see things in a different light. Use social media to meet people and talk to them, but don’t limit yourself to social media. This can make you feel lonelier. You don’t have to be aggressive about making friends in the outside world, but start taking time to talk to people in the checkout line. Compliment someone at the library. You’ll be surprised by the amazing people you come across.
Life is going to throw you some curve balls, but that is why you’re so awesome now. You’ve lived and learned. Don’t let this low get in your way, and don’t let it be the end of your greatness. Nothing stays the same, which means you can change it for the better.
