Do You Need to Change Jobs Before You Can Change Course? If you're in a job that's sucking the life force out of you emotionally, time-wise, or both, but for whatever reason it doesn’t make sense to take the leap to doing your own thing right now, then, for you, the road to right livelihood might begin by getting a better job. I know it did for me.  I spent seven years commuting 90 miles a day to my corporate job. I didn’t yet know what I wanted to be doing but I knew that if I could free up some commuting time it would at least buy me some time to start figuring it out. So I took a new job at a smaller company doing similar work but with half the commute. Freeing up that hour a day in commuting time allowed me to work on building my dream life on the side. For you it might mean getting a job that lets you telecommute, provides some hands-on experience in your dream job, or reduces your stress level enough that you can actually focus on finding your true calling. The Good Enough Job Changing course from having a boss to being your own boss doesn’t happen overnight. And while I think being an entrepreneur beats being an employee hands down, depending on your circumstances, your transition to self-employment may have to start with finding what Barbara Sher calls the “good enough” job. In order to qualify as the good enough job, Barbara says it must meet two criteria: 1) It can't be toxic. Jumping from one high stress job in your current field to another one is not the answer. (You’ll know you’ve stepped into another toxic job if once you get there you find yourself uttering the words, “same circus, different clowns.”) Even though you may make less money in a different job or field, imagine how much happier and less stressed out you'll be working in a more low-key or otherwise less challenging or demanding environment. 2) It can't consume more than 40 hours a week. There’s just no way around it. If you want to create a new and better life doing work you really love, you have to be willing to put in the time. That means investing some of your evenings and weekend time into building your real dream on the side. Common sense would tell you if you’re logging 50, 60 or more hours a week at your day job it simply leaves no time for anything else. Let’s take a closure look at five perfectly good reasons why phase one of your overall changing course strategy may be a job change. If you find you too need to change jobs before you can change course, then skip down to Some Places to Look for the Good Enough Job to begin your search. 5 Reasons to Start With a Job Change 1) Your current job is incredibly stressful or toxic. Tom's company recently downsized which means he's now doing the job of three people. The pressure to meet impossible deadlines and the hassle of having to navigate unseemly organizational politics just to do his job leaves him feeling irritable, depleted, and empty. 2) Your current job consumes too many life hours. Ever since Joan became a mother, she’s dreamed about writing children's books. Instead she works in corporate finance in Manhattan. Getting to work means getting up at 4:30 a.m. to catch the 6:05 a.m. commuter train. She gets back home at 8:00 p.m. just in time to put her kids to bed. Joan says sometimes she's too exhausted to even read them a bedtime story. 3) You just can’t afford to take the leap right now. Before you can afford to transition to self-employment maybe you have one or more kids in college, or you first need to clear away some old debt. If your current job is toxic or requires you to work an inhuman amount of hours, but you still need to bring in a certain amount of money, then you may need to find a less stressful and/or time consuming job in the interim. Just don’t forget to be doing your homework on your dream job and socking away as much as you can for when the big day does come. 4) The thing you love to do just won’t pay the bills. A software engineer named Jack has a passion for opera singing. Despite being involved in a local opera company for years, at 52 and living two hours from the nearest big city, Jack knows he’s never going to make his living as an opera singer. What he’d love to do though is find a job that would allow him to devote an hour or two a day rehearsing and exercising his voice. He also wants to work at home. Jack decided to do two things. He went looking for freelance software engineer jobs and he decided to take a course on how to become a freelance marketing copywriter (for more information on this interesting occupation, go to Cool Jobs). The combination of the two would allow him to work from home and have time to practice his opera. 5) You need some on-the-job experience in order to launch your own thing. Some occupations are harder to launch from scratch as a solo entrepreneur than others. For example, a client of mine named Cindy is wild about fine wine and good food. So one part of her transition strategy was to take a part-time job working in an upscale wine bar and cheese shop. Cindy’s plan was to take win tasting classes through the Culinary Institute of America. But working on the retail side gave her the opportunity to learn about wine, working with the public, and the wine business from a different vantage point. From here Cindy transitioned into her own business as a wine expert. Today she partners with gourmet shops, wineries, and restaurants to run workshops on wine tasting and on pairing wine and food. Cindy loves what she does and it all began with the very strategic decision to take a job-job. (If you want to learn more about Cindy and others who are successfully changing course, I invite you to read my article Six Tips on How to Get Started.) If you want to safely test the waters of a potential new career without actually diving in, check out Vocation Vacations. This innovative service sets you up with in-person, personal mentoring with professionals who have succeeded in such dream jobs as professional sword maker, inn owner, baseball team manager, golf instructor, radio DJ, cattle rancher, interior designer, doggie day care owner, or dozens of other fascinating occupations. Some Places to Look for the “Good Enough” Job Do a Job Search CareerBuilder I used to be a columnist for this site and have since partnered with the nation's largest on-line employment network. Use multiple search criteria to find your ideal job or post your resume and let employers find you. Seek Out Highly-rated Employers Look for Companies Offering Sabbaticals According to articles in the Christian Science Monitor, Arrive (Amtrak's onboard magazine), and the Washington Post many companies are offering employee sabbaticals. Here's a short list of companies offering paid sabbaticals: -
Ralston Purina -
Netscape Communications -
Intel -
Ernst and Young -
IBM -
Eli Lilly and Company -
General Motors -
Arrow Electronics -
Autodesk -
Charles Schwab & Co. -
Dupont -
LL Bean -
McDonalds -
Apple Computer If you can’t stand the idea of getting another job-job click here to learn about some Cool Jobs. | 
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“I didn’t expect to find a ready-made community of kindred
dreamers so excited about changing course that they
reignited my own enthusiasm for change. Thank you!”
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