To step out of a comfort zone, it's NOT always about quitting your current job.
Although from my experience as a coach/mentor, that is usually the first thing comes up to people's mind.
Before decide to leave your job, let's think of ways to "pivot" your career first and leave your company second. Here is my example of how to pivot career in marketing:
There are 4 key areas that any marketer should consider:
1. Skills/Expertise: product marketing, growth marketing, brand marketing, etc. or growing to become a specialist/people manager
2. Market: city/state/country/region/global
3. Product/business model: free/paid/freemium/marketplace/ads or B2B/B2C
4. Working Environment: startup/corporate/NGO or office locations or team/org culture/management style
- If you change at least 1 area, you're stepping out of your comfort zone
- If you change 3 areas at the same time, you're entering a high growing zone
- I would not recommend changing all 4 areas at once as it may push you to a panic zone because "everything is new". You want to hold back 1 area that you are familiar with to keep it as your advantage for the transition.
Example of how I used this model for my marketing career:
- I started my marketing career in B2B Ads product for Vietnam market. I then stayed in the same company but changed to B2C subscription product for Asia Pacific region.
I changed 3 areas: Skills (product marketing to growth marketing); Market (one single market to multiple markets in a region); Product/business model (B2B to B2C; ads to subscription)
--> I kept the last area (working environment) remained the same for my own comfort: same office, same organization, same company.
Let's give another example for someone wants to break into a new industry using this model:
When you want to break into a new industry - let's say from consulting to marketing, obviously you will change Working Environment and Skills/Expertise.
You can consider keeping at least 1 area for e.g Market (you are a market expert in country X) or Product/Business Model (you have consulted multiple clients about B2B Saas) to do the transition into a new role of marketing.
Check out other posts I wrote about career here.
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