You cannot think your way into a new career or into complete career certainty.
You have to try possible directions on.
Pros-and-cons lists have their place, as does reflection. But they are not enough.
They can help you identify what matters: your values, strengths, needs, non-negotiables.
But they cannot tell you what it would actually be like to do the work.
☘️ For that, you need small, safe-to-try experiments:
❧ a conversation with someone in the filed;
❧ a day of shadowing;
❧ a short project;
❧ a brief course;
❧ a volunteer or freelance assignment.
Often, clients come to me thinking that to change careers they have to hand in their notice and take some dramatic leap into the unknown.
You don’t.
But you do need to gather evidence beyond your thoughts.
You cannot fully know whether a new direction fits from inside your head. You have to try it on. And a small experiment can show you what energises you, what drains you, what surprises you—and whether the reality of a direction matches the idea of it.
The question is not: What is the perfect next move?
It’s:
📌 What is one small experiment that could teach me something useful?
With love,
Dina 🫶🏽
Image: Me with picture-book author and illustrator, Dan Santat at the SCBWI Children’s Books Conference in Los Angeles in 2015. I was trying on the world of picture-book writing—a small experiment that eventually led to the publication of my own picture book, “God’s Love Letter: Creation”, in 2022.
Resources:
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Book recommendation: Working Identity, Updated Edition, With a New Preface: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career, by Heminia Ibarra. This is one of my favourite career tranistion books and a must for anyone considering a career change.
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