I have a friend, a fellow Virginian, who refers to himself as "Highway Man." He has a large sales district in Virginia and Washington D.C. that he services, thus the road reference. However, as the Highway Man will gladly admit, he doesn't always take the highway. He prefers to liven things up by taking shortcuts, bypasses, dirt roads, side streets, however he feels like getting to his destination on a given day. Of course, with Washington D.C. traffic, you'd better have some alternate routes in your back pocket, so Highway Man does alright going where he needs to.
Highway Man is no Radical Dude, right? Using different tactics to get to a destination is not that wild and crazy of an idea. And after all, taking the road less traveled isn't always a bad thing. It may take longer but scenic views and fresh air are plentiful compared to the exhaust-filled, clogged up main thoroughfares.
So why is it that whenever the idea of changing careers comes into a person's head the first thing he or she thinks about is taking the Super Highway of How It's Done? Like assuming you must go back to school? Or enroll in an extensive training program? Or come up with exorbitant amounts of upfront capital? When it comes to the mindset of millions of Americans, it appears as if hefty monetary and time investments have the ONLY proven track record when it comes to successfully switching gears and taking a new path to fulfillment, success, and happiness. These are the superhighways of career change and you'll pay a hefty toll. (Okay, I know. Enough with the road analogies...)
Thinking of only the most drastic, expensive, life-altering tactics can be a huge pitfall when it comes to career changing. First of all, this philosophy keeps many people (if not most) stuck; they avoid taking a necessary step in a new direction. Secondly, it impedes the creative brainstorming necessary to really jump into a unique market. Thirdly, this mindset plays into fear, and fear keeps a brain in its preferred status quo comfort zone. Lastly, it misses the point of finding an elegant, cost effective, simple way of creating new opportunities for oneself. No pain no gain theory debunked!! Pointless worrying for nothing.
Of course (and this I have to say) some career changes are going to entail monetary investments and going back for another degree. And for those who don't want to admit that's the case to get to their dream and are putting off taking any monetary risks... well, that's a whole other blog post.
No Cost Solutions
The following are 10 simple, cost-effective, alternate routes in career changing:
1) Read books on your own to educate yourself about a new field. (I call this the Abraham Lincoln method- homeschool yourself!)
2) Barter your current expertise with that of an expert in your newly chosen field. If she/he wants to learn more about what you know, teach one another.
3) Network with friends and family and offer your up-and-coming service for free to these people.
4) Meet new people, especially those in your new field of interest, to broaden your social circles and garner potential clients.
4) Find a mentor who has experience in the new career path you would like to embark upon.
5) Join free networking groups, associations, social groups (or, even if there is a membership fee of, let's say, $50-300/year, it's still cheaper than going back to grad school for $50-100K+!)
6) Go on informational interviews with people who haven't gone the most traditional routes. Even if they're in a different field than you're interested in, they can give you some interesting ideas about how to take a non-traditional route.
7) Relocate. (Maybe not simple, but it could be a perfect solution.) Who knows, maybe you'd actually like being in a different locale where your new field has more demand or the overhead is much cheaper.
8) Create a niche that uses the expertise you already possess. (Blending fields works well in this case.)
9) Shadow someone, intern or work part-time in your desired new field to make sure this is really what you want. If not, perhaps you are half way there, and just need to tweak a few elements of a new career path to make it fit perfectly. Most notably, you are doing the experiential learning before going back to school for theoretical learning. This helps ensure that when and if you do go back to school, you're investing money in something you're truly committed to.
10) Collaborate. Partner with a professional who complements your field of expertise. Form a team that combines two different specialties and therefore provides two equally good but diversified services.
So you see, there's no need to panic unnecessarily, right? There could be a way to get where you want to go without doing anything too drastic.
Stop Swearing and Switch Gears!
Here's an example. Let’s say you think you might want to become a published writer and teacher like the guy that wrote a bazillion books you see filling up a whole shelf at Barnes and Noble. This is because you suspect you’d enjoy being a teacher who writes and is rich and well respected. Heck, why not?
So, the first, and very typical, line of thinking goes like this:
“I want to teach, and maybe even write but I don’t want to teach elementary school or even high school. I would only want to teach at the collegiate level, if anything. But then I would have to go back to school yet again and for how long?”
[Do research online and find it takes, ummm, many years.]
Holy @&*%^$ ! I’m totally screwed! My goal to teach will never happen! How can I ever go back to school and still work and pay my rent and eat something other than Spam.... not to mention I don’t want to write a dissertation on some obscure topic like the esoteric nature of medieval cheeses and their ingestive correlation to obtaining knighthood or ... whatever!”
Using this line of thinking, you would be looking at only one, very standard, way of teaching- in a classroom. Major roadblock there. But what other ways are there to teach? And WHAT do you want to teach? And to whom? In what other settings besides the classroom could you teach? Those are pretty important parts of the equation that you just might want to tackle before a full blown panic ensues.
You could begin by teaching in your arena of expertise. Perhaps it's something non-academic but if it comes naturally to you and people need your knowledge or skill, who cares? Then, gradually, build your knowledge in another expertise. Take a class here and there that really benefits you. Acquire some new "tools." Research on your own. Talk to people. Take the time to go deeper into your new subject area while you still have some income flowing from your existing pool of knowledge. Then, if you really want to go The Road Less Traveled (and blow MapQuest out of the water!) you could creatively mesh the two fields, offering something fresh and new to the public. And there may be no need for traditional credentials because you have become the expert in your newly created field.
This may sound pie-in-the-sky-what-is-in-Katie's-coffee-as-she-writes-this-nonsense; however, look out there and see what I'm talking about. Look for the pioneers of services and products and programs and see that they created their own expertise by filling a need, then developed a following, then fostered demand and... voila!!!! They published a series of books!
Easy? No. But nothing worth doing is. And investing more creative capital upfront than monetary investment involves little to no debt and reaps unlimited rewards. Just ask Highway Man...
