https://unsplash.com/@serjosoza
It’s time to get some distance from your current job. It can be too easy to think of your job as your career, or at least as a defining feature of your career. However, it doesn’t have to be like that. Sure, if you’re in your dream job and you are truly excited and proud to have reached such a milestone, then maybe your career relies heavily on your job. But for the rest of us who are works in progress, seeing your job as a piece of your career can help you in two ways.
First, if you are unhappy or unsatisfied with your current job, this perspective reminds you that you are on a path to better things. You are not your job. You are capable of change.
Second, if you are curious about what comes next professionally, even if you are presently satisfied, this perspective gives you room to dream big and to avoid the fear of getting stuck in something that will eventually stop challenging you.
Your career is the sum of your jobs, projects, relationships and more. And your career is influenced by your job. However, your career is not your job. And while we’re at it, you are not your job. (You are also not your career but that’s another post.) Even if your job leads to a dead end—no upward or lateral mobility—your career is not in a dead-end. It just means it’s time for a change. So start placing your job within your career, instead of your career in your job.