This is Find Your Dream Job, the podcast that helps you get hired, have the career you want, and make a difference in life.

I'm your host, Mac Pritchard.

I'm also the founder of Max List. It's a job board in the Pacific Northwest that helps you find a fulfilling career.

Every Wednesday, I talk to a different expert about the tools you need to get the work you want.

Making a career pivot can be challenging, and to do it successfully, you need to commit to the change.

Carissa Kerrissy is here to talk about giving yourself permission to change careers.

She's the founder of future forward careers.

Carissa's company helps burned out teachers and mission-driven professionals

reclaim energy, we discover purpose, and transition into fulfilling work. She joins us from

outside of Portland, Oregon. Well, Carissa, let's jump right into it. Here's where I want to

start. Why might people be reluctant to change

careers? What's going on there? Yeah. There are numerous reasons why someone would be hesitant

to change careers, but I want to back up for a minute. And I just want to acknowledge that

changing careers is actually a completely normal process in our lifetime. The average amount of times that an American

will change jobs is around 12. And careers, it's anywhere between three and seven. So I just

want to first acknowledge that it's normal. It's a normal process for us to go through. As we move through different phases of our life, things shift, our values shift, our priorities and our goals shift. So I just want to first start by acknowledging how common and normal this process really is. When we are thinking about making a big change in our life, we are going to have a lot of fears that

pop up because what we're really doing is we're stepping into the unknown. And that's scary.

This actually goes back to neuroscience studying the brain and why we are so prone to fear change

is that we're all born with a negativity bias, which means that we

are focused, laser focused on the things that could go wrong. And that can look like in a career

change, these thoughts that pop up around, I am too old to start over. I don't have the right skills or experience.

This isn't going to work for someone like me. So those are common objections and fear is a natural

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