When we talk about career changes, we tend to think of a drastic change where you burn all the bridges behind you. However, that is not always the best solution. In fact, research shows that it is smarter to go at it step by step.

TV programs love them: drastic changes from one day to the next, often only afterwards revealing that it was not such a good idea. On TV that makes for a laugh, but for the people themselves it is actually not that much fun. Because there is no going back or they have used all their savings for that step.

Research by economist Herminia Ibarra shows that a drastic change of course is not always the best. She advocates a so-called 'test and learn approach', in which you always test in small steps to see if what you came up with is actually correct. For example, instead of moving directly to France, you can first spend a day at a B&B in your own country. Just to see how it works.

In practice

In one of my coaching session, I spoke to a candidate who also felt that she had to change course drastically. She hoped that career choice and personality tests would reveal what would suit her and that she could simply respond to that. Unfortunately that is not how it works in practice.

This candidate herself also noticed that that would be too big a step for her. She still had too little information to be able to take the step, which made her doubt. As a result, this caused her quite a bit of stress, also because she had very high expectations of herself. She had come up with all kinds of things in her head, but in reality she didn't really know what that would look like.

By looking at possible small experiments to see if her next step would really suit her, she found more peace. "I don't really understand why I'm in such a hurry," she said. "Changing course so drastically doesn't suit me at all."

Instead of a development plan with drastic and irreversible plans, there is now a plan with a number of such experiments for the coming period. Each one much more manageable and therefore easier to implement. Every test will teach her something, so that she can make adjustments in time. That way you prevent it from turning into a disappointment.

Are you ready for your next step? Feel free to contact me to learn more about the possibilities.