Do you ever feel like your career is slowly deteriorating rather than advancing? You may feel like your sanity is deteriorating along with it. This is a red flag that its time to make some changes to your career plan and make a move. Here are 4 of the most important career plan updates that will help you get a better job, save your sanity, and keep your career on track.

Related Article: The Ultimate Guide To Career Planning

Deal-Breaker Updates

Think about those painful moments in your career where you found yourself in a bad situation that led you to promise yourself, “Never again”. Were you successful in keeping your promise, or did you repeat your suffering more than once?

The reason so many people cannot break free is that a decision, no matter how committed, is not enough. Your path in life led you to a painful situation. Only a different path can help you escape.

We refer to those painful I’ll-quit-before-I-go-through-that-again moments as deal-breakers in career coaching. When you discover one, you need to make a change or chart a new course in your career plan that leads to a different outcome.

Planning Around Deal Breakers

• Got a boss from hell – Evaluate if you need to switch teams, switch employers, or work with a coach on how to defuse the situation and keep your job.

• Forced to do repeated layoffs – Update your career plan with a job search strategy and interview questions to research the stability of future employers.

• One of your job duties crushing your soul – Review your skills, experience, and interests in your career plan and brainstorm additional roles and industries that could use your talents.

Update your career plan with a new course of action that will improve your circumstances and avoid painful deal-breakers in the future.

Related Article: Breaking the Bad Day Cycle

Perfect Day Updates

Remember the last time you finished a workday and just felt awesome? Maybe everything went right that day or you learned something new. Perhaps you worked on a special project or partnered with an exciting team. What was it about that day that left you feeling so good?

The mistake most people make is to just enjoy the feeling without taking any action (then it’s back to the meat grinder the next morning). Imagine if you could feel that way every day instead of a few times a year. Figure out what was different about the day and make some career plan updates to have more of it.

Building On A Perfect Day

• Enjoyed working with live people instead of staring at a computer all day – Explore new career paths that include more human interaction.

• Discovered you enjoy running reports for the boss instead of talking to people – Volunteer to be the team report runner or explore a career as data analyst.

• Just got back from vacation and it made all the difference – Add a self-care strategy to your career plan to structure time off activities, weekend rejuvenation, and vacations that maximize mental health.

Update your career plan to take advantage of these new self-discoveries. Once you know what lights you up, plan for more of it!

Career Change Updates

You might have your entire career planned out to the smallest detail, but the job market is changing all the time with new options appearing every day. There are times when it makes sense to switch careers and pursue a new direction in life.

Situations That Could Spark a Career Change

• Noticing that the team across the hall is paid twice as much for half the work and stress.

• Partnering with another team on a joint project and realizing their work is way more interesting than yours.

• Learning about an exciting new career in an industry publication or at a conference.

• Having drinks with a friend that will not stop gushing about their new gig.

When you stumble across a new career option that intrigues you, explore it! Who do you know in the field you can take to lunch and get some tips? Talk to someone at work, attend a relevant networking event, or research it online.

Then review a few job postings to understand what it would take to make the change. Compare the job requirements to your current skill sets, experience, and career plan. Can you attend a few seminars to bridge the gap or would you need a 4 year degree just to start at the bottom?

If you decide to move forward, write out a strategy in your career plan regarding how to meet the job requirements and make the transition. If you find yourself overwhelmed, consider working with a professional coach that specializes in career changes.

Career Change When You Hate Your Job

Realizing “I hate my job” is intentionally not listed above as a driver of career change. However, it is a great time to have an honest conversation with yourself or work with a coach to figure out what about the role is actually driving you crazy (refer to deal-breaker section). Then you can strategically plan ways to solve the specific issue.

A career change driven by finding something you love even more is an upgrade! A career change driven by hating your current job is avoiding the real issue. If you don’t fix the problem, you may go to a lot of trouble to get a better job or switch careers but still have the same issue.

Related Article: Career Coach, A Tool of the Ultra Successful

Carpe Diem Updates

Sometimes life presents opportunities you do not want to miss, even if they are not aligned with your current career plan. You might rethink your entire future as a result.

Life Opportunities That Trigger Career Plan Changes

• Discovering a leader or mentor you would like to work with and learn from.

• Finding an opportunity that allows you to serve a higher purpose (feed the homeless, save the rain forest, cure cancer).

• Finding a life partner or starting a family. You may suddenly have better things to do than work.

• Falling in love with a location that makes you want to relocate (mountains, desert, maybe work remote from an island).

A common mistake people make in this situation is thinking they only have two choices: continue down the same path to their goals -OR- give up the goals to pursue the new opportunity. Why not both? Sit down with your career plan and evaluate what it would take. Prioritize. Weigh pros and cons. You might push your goals back a few years or take a different path to reach them, but you can probably create a strategy to have it all!

Saving Your Sanity

Your career serves you. You do not serve it. Staying sane in your career is about making progress toward your goals and consistently improving your situation.

When you discover a deal breaker, take action to eliminate it from your career. When you have an amazing day, figure out what you did that made it so great and do more of it. A truly successful career plan is consistently updated using your day to day experiences as a guide.

Staying sane is just the beginning. Imagine if you eliminated the 3 things you disliked the most from your job and increased the parts you enjoyed every year. This approach will radically transform your work experience and lead to increased satisfaction at work and at home. (You might find your friends and family enjoy you more when you have less bad days or get a better job you actually enjoy.) Create a plan, keep it updated, and build the career you deserve.