Managing Your Career: A Guide To Changing Jobs

So for quite quite a while now I've been thinking about moving on with my career and looking for a new job. My first intention was to wait until the new year - fresh start, fresh beginning, more jobs listed. You can probably see where I'm coming from. Then I realised something while looking around and considering making applications: at the end of the day, if I end up moving into a role similar to my current one, I'll still be left sitting in an office, doing the same sort of work in accounting and what good would that do for me, considering I would love to try a career change.

A career change is a funny thing though. For most careers, it means getting a solid amount of work experience, plus having tertiary qualifications which may take about 3-5 years full-time alone. So what's the best option? There are some careers which can be taken up by doing a quick course and then trying to make a break into the market, but it's certainly not easy, and since I'm looking for something which isn't a labour intensive or office job, that rules out about 75% of the jobs in Sydney. Bit stuck there. I do have some ideas but whether I'll look into pursuing them yet or not, I'm yet to confidently come to a conclusion.

So back to my initial thoughts from this morning which I'd like to comment on. While at work, I took a bit of time out away from my desk and did some thinking. In a calm state of mind, I thought to myself and realised when I was looking at my watch that only 1.5 hours out of my work day which had passed. ONLY 1.5 hours out of the 9 hours which includes a 1 hour lunch break. I think for most people (especially office workers) who really don't enjoy their jobs, they're constantly looking at the desktop clock on their PC, their watch, or more commonly their phone hoping that the hours pass by quicker than they should in an effort to get out of work as quickly as possible so they can scurry back home or go out for the night.

Now, the dilemma is why should we hope that time passes us by so quickly - these 8 or 9 hours in a work day - especially since our lives are limited. Shouldn't we be out there making the most of our time instead of just constantly focusing on how long it is until we can get out from work.

Essentially, life will pass us by and we won't even know it, with our focus being too much on wanting to have life pass us by while we're not doing the things we enjoy, and having it pass us by too quickly in the shorter moments of happiness we get in life, especially while we're working and sleeping for close to 2/3rd's of our life.

So what's the best way to find a career or a job where you can feel like you're making the most out of your life and time without having to constantly look at the clock wishing the day was over...?