How many times have you heard people complain that they hate their jobs? Maybe you, yourself, have lamented that you feel trapped in your position. It’s a fairly common phenomenon.
And now you’re unemployed and perhaps you’re thinking that you have to go back to the same type of position, or the same industry only because it’s what you did before. If that’s your line of thinking, we have good news for you.
You don’t have to.
Just because you were a widget inspector in the widget maintenance industry, that doesn’t mean that you have to go back there. Granted, that may seen like the path of least resistance, but it doesn’t have to be.
This is your big chance to look elsewhere. This is your chance to broaden your horizons. This is your golden opportunity to decide what kind of job, in what kind of industry would make you happy and for you to pursue that dream.
Note: If you’re not certain about what shape that new you will take, try downloading our Nifty50s Job Seekers workbook. More than a five-minute Cosmo quiz, this exercise may require 15-30 minutes to complete, but it will force you to think about some critical elements of your work life and how you can successfully achieve them.
Let’s face it. How many more years of work do you have left? Optimistically, you can have 20 or more years remaining in the workforce. Doesn’t it make sense to spend those years doing something that you enjoy? Or, do you want to slip right back into a job or industry where you’re not (or were not) very happy only because it seemed at the time that it was the low-hanging fruit?
Of course, after looking around you may come to realize that your old job wasn’t that bad after all and that maybe you might appreciate it a lot more having now peeked behind the curtain at other opportunities. But now you’ll be comfortable with it having sampled what seemed to be the greener grass on the other side of the fence.
In the end, if you spend it right, having this time unemployed may be the best thing that ever happened to you.