I’ll let you in on a secret… You deserve to find a career you actually enjoy.

Believe me, a lot of people agree with that statement. But when it comes down to it, they struggle with putting in the time and effort it takes to figure out what they actually want to do.

Why is this? Well, at any given time, there are many reasons people feel they can’t change their careers. And to be honest, some of these reasons feel VALID and they are actually extremely challenging to navigate. As someone who has worked both in HR and as a Career Coach, I’ve heard tons of different reasons from people why they can’t change their careers, which might include some of the following:

• Financial responsibilities – you might feel like you have a ton of financial obligations and can’t imagine how you’d continue to meet those obligations while changing careers. The expense of going back to school may not be an option you want to consider.
• Family responsibilities – you’ve got people that depend on you, and you just can’t make changing careers a priority right now.
• Lack of time – you’ve already got a demanding full-time job, how are you supposed to search for a new career while working somewhere else?
• General negativity / apathy – maybe you haven’t had much luck in your job search and you’ve only been able to find jobs you hate – you may feel like it’s impossible and wonder why you should bother trying to find something you actually like.
• You may feel like you’ve run out of time and it’s too late to change. You feel like you should have started the process earlier, maybe 5, 10, or 20 years ago. Now it’s too late and you may as well give up.

These are just a few of the most common reasons that tend to come up. And if you’re struggling with your career, the above reasons might resonate with you. You might even feel like multiple reasons from the above list above apply to you. And again, these are real, every day challenges people face, and they can certainly FEEL like valid reasons to give up on career change.

The truth is though… these reasons should not STOP you from starting to figure out what you actually want to do, or what you’ll really enjoy. There is nothing about the above reasons that can stop you from working on career growth or career change.

Don’t get me wrong… these may be valid reasons for not quitting your job RIGHT NOW. They might seem to make perfect sense when you explain to someone else (or even yourself) that you plan to stay in your job. These are great reasons to not drop everything and change your career TODAY.

But, the truth is, these reasons are actually just CHALLENGES. Challenges that you can overcome… 1) if you want to and, 2) if you’re willing to work at it. The only thing actually STOPPING you from changing your career is YOU.

You can WORK on changing careers no matter what else is going on in your life. You just need to realize that it’s a process, not an overnight fix. Figuring out what you want in a career takes work and time. Once you commit to putting in this effort consistently, you will eventually figure out what you want.

So, yes, you can work on changing careers if you have kids and a busy family life, or if you have student loan debt or a large mortgage. If you’re feeling apathy, negativity, or even depression – you can still WORK on changing careers.

Now, if you’re facing any of the above – it might be more challenging to work on a career change. It might take longer, it might require more effort and planning, and might not be easy. But no one ever said it would be easy or that it would happen quickly.

So how do you do it? Well, you have to find a way to make career change a priority and figure out how to fit working on it into your daily life. You also need to find a way to keep consistent and NOT give up even when it gets frustrating (and, trust me, it WILL get frustrating at some point).

Now is this going to be easy? Nope, not at all. Some days you’re going to be frustrated and want to give up on the whole process. You might even take a break from it for awhile, and that’s okay too. As long as you don’t give up.

Is it going to be fast? No, probably not. Career change is a process, not a split-second decision. And if you have other things going on in your life, you won’t be able to devote 100% of your time to it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t keep working on it when you do have the time.

Once you start working on a change, by the way, you will start to feel better about your career. You’re feeling dissatisfied for a reason – and working on identifying what that is and figuring out how to get past it – is undeniably a positive thing.