Last updated 11.11.26
“This is the only industry I can work in.”
“I’ve invested so much in this career, I can’t change now.”
“I’ll never find another job that suits me.”
I hear versions of these sentences in career conversations. When you’ve spent years getting good at something, it’s understandable that the work you already know is the easiest to picture. And there may be good reasons to stay. You might need a certain income or hours that work around your family. But wanting a move can be difficult when you can’t yet see what the alternatives are. Before you decide whether to stay, it may help to explore the roles, paths, and possibilities you haven’t considered so you have something real to compare with what you know.
One of the most useful things I can do as a coach is give someone time to finish their own thought. Nancy Kline’s book Time to Think helped me notice how often we cut that process short. We hear a pause and offer a suggestion. We recognise something from our own experience and jump in with a story. Sometimes, if we wait a little longer, the person carries on and says the thing they hadn’t quite realised they were thinking. If you’d like that kind of space to think through a decision, it’s part of how I work in career change coaching.
In an episode of The Digital Human, the writer Jenny Odell talks about going birdwatching. Sometimes she goes out and sees nothing, and she’s fine with that. If she hears something, she stops and looks carefully. And when she does see something unexpected, she’s so delighted that she says it feels like she’s “had a kind of visitation or something”.
Later in the same episode, Richard Holloway brings up Socrates’ remark about the unexamined life. He talks about how little we can know about ourselves if we rarely question what we take for granted. For many of us our weeks are full enough just getting the work done and keeping the rest of life going. A thought like “This is the only industry I can work in” can go unexamined for years.
Creating thinking environments in everyday work
You can try this the next time a colleague brings you a problem. Give them your full attention, let them finish and see what happens if you leave a little silence. If they seem to have reached the end of their thought, you could ask, “What else comes to mind?”
You can ask for the same thing when you’re the one who needs to think. You could say, “Can I talk this through with you for ten minutes? I’d like to get my thoughts out first, then hear what you think.” It gives the other person a way to help, especially if their first instinct is to offer advice.
Choose one question, such as “What could change about the job I already have?” Think aloud for a few minutes while the other person listens, then jot down one idea you want to explore.
Four ways to help make better career decisions
I’ve adapted these four steps for career decisions from Travis M. and Spencer Greenberg’s Clearer Thinking article, Believing you only have one option is dangerous. You can try them on paper or talk them through with someone who’ll give you time to think.
1. Work out what you want more of
Think of a specific day or project when work felt worthwhile. What were you doing? Who were you working with? What made it a good day? You might discover that what you miss is having time to do a piece of work properly, or being able to see who benefits from it. That gives you something more useful to look for than a job title.
2. Give yourself more than one option
Write down a few possibilities before deciding whether they’re realistic. Include things you could change where you are, such as taking on a different project or moving to another team, as well as ideas that would take you further afield. If you keep coming back to “stay or leave”, try asking, “What could staying look like if something changed?”
3. Check what could work in practice
Now bring in the things that matter to you, such as pay, hours, location or how much time you can give to retraining. Separate what you know from what you’d need to find out. “I need to earn at least this much” is something you can use to assess a role. “I’d have to take a pay cut to do that” might be something you can check.
4. Find one idea you can test
Pick an option you’re curious about and find a small way to learn more. If another team’s work appeals to you, could you sit in on one of their meetings or help with a short project? If you’re curious about a different role, ask someone who does it what a typical week looks like. What you learn can help you decide whether to explore further.
If you’d like to talk to someone who does the kind of work you’re exploring, use Plan a career conversation to work out what you’d like to ask them.
