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The Career Change Trap (And How to Avoid It)
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There's a moment most people recognize but rarely talk about out loud. The weekend stops feeling restful around 2 p.m. on Sunday. Work feels like something you're enduring rather than something you're doing. You're showing up, technically doing your job — but something's off, and you know it. The natural response is to wonder: Is it time for a career change? Maybe. But before you update your resume, there's a more important question to answer first — and most people skip it entirely. The question isn't whether to change. It's what, exactly, needs to change. A problem with your job is not the same as a problem with your company. A problem with your company is not the same as a problem with your industry. And none of those are the same as a problem with your career path. These distinctions matter enormously, because they point to completely different solutions. Plenty of people have left careers they loved because of a manager they hated — and ended up just as miserable somewhere new. Before you go anywhere, sit with four questions. What would you do if money weren't a factor? (Not to find your dream job, but to surface what you actually value.) Are you running away from something, or toward something? What skills do you have that your current role isn't using? And who do you envy professionally — because that envy is data, and it's pointing somewhere worth looking. If you've worked through those honestly and you still feel pulled toward a change, the next move is not to quit your job. It's to experiment. Talk to people already doing the work you're considering — 30 minutes with someone on the inside will tell you more than months of research from the outside. Freelance on the side. Volunteer somewhere adjacent. Ask your current manager about stretch projects that get you closer to where you want to go. Every experiment either confirms you're on the right path or saves you from an expensive wrong turn. Both are wins. And then — this is the part most people miss — give yourself a deadline. Career change decisions that stay open-ended tend to stay unresolved. Research on goal-setting is clear: a concrete deadline dramatically increases the odds of follow-through. Pick a date. Write it somewhere visible. Take your own decision seriously. The people who navigate career changes well aren't usually the ones who took the biggest leap. They're the ones who were the most intentional — who did the reflection, had the conversations, and ran the experiments before they ever handed in a resignation letter. By the time they made the move, it wasn't a gamble. It was a step onto ground they'd already tested. If you want to go deeper on the framework — including how I've navigated this decision more than once in my own career — the full video is linked below.
Here's some more resources I recommend: The Turnaround Nobody Noticed: In October 2015, Walmart lost $20 billion in market cap in a matter of days. Warren Buffett was selling. Wall Street wanted answers. And the CEO wasn't panicking—he was waiting. That's not typical. Most corporate turnarounds follow a familiar script: bring in a high-profile outsider, hire consultants, roll out a grand plan designed to calm nervous investors. Doug McMillon didn't do any of that. When he took over in 2014, his first move was to climb into a warehouse worker's truck and start asking questions. The plan that emerged—raising wages, restoring management layers, turning store locations into last-mile fulfillment centers—didn't come from a boardroom. It came from 1.4 million frontline employees. By February 2026, Walmart crossed $1 trillion in market capitalization for the first time. The real leadership lesson here has almost nothing to do with retail. Click here to watch. Building Trust on Your Team: Most leaders assume trust is a byproduct of time—that it develops naturally if people just work together long enough. Research suggests otherwise. Trust is built deliberately, through specific behaviors and shared experiences that either reinforce or undermine it over time. In this LinkedIn Learning course, I break down the two types of trust that matter most on any team, why they create a self-reinforcing cycle with respect, and the concrete practices that build both—even in teams that have been burned before. If your team is holding back instead of leaning in, this is worth your time. Click here to start the course.
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