Who’s afraid of the big bad change?

My newest child hit the five month mark this week, and I got to thinking about his young life so far. Aside from the basics of survival, his life is a constant series of falling asleep in one place and waking up in another.

Fall asleep at home, wake up at the gym.

Fall asleep at the grocery store, wake up at his Uncle and Aunt’s house.

And so on. Now, if you were a defenseless little creature who had no understanding of the world around you, wouldn’t you think you’d be freaked out that your surroundings change everytime you close your eyes for a little while? I would.

But my baby seems to have absolutely no trouble at al with it. I guess having a familiar face nearby always helps…

That said, what happens to us along the way of life, that we lose our ability to cope with a changing environment the way we did as babies? We have the familiar faces of our friends and family around us as adults, but why do we grow ever resistant to change as we get older?

Yes, this has a job search implication as well. Sometimes we, as adults, stay in the same job because we’re fearful of change.

Or when we take the bold step of putting a resume together and getting it “out there,” we apply for the same position we already have, just at a different place.

Or we use our resume to talk about our history and experience in terms of the job we have now, instead of the job we want to have.

I like this post from Career Ramblings, which gives three solid reasons why change is good – and fakes you out on why change is bad.

It’s March already. If you started this year thinking about a career change, and you haven’t taken any steps yet to make it happen, don’t spend time mentally berating yourself, or telling yourself that you must not really want to change jobs, if you haven’t done anything about it yet.

Instead, start eay. Start by taking five minutes a day, for the rest of the month, to write down the attributes of what your perfect job would look like. No job searching. No putting it into a resume. Just start brainstorming, and see what comes to mind.

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