Why Your Next Career Move Should Scare You
As a healthcare A/E/C professional, you have dedicated your career to designing, engineering, and constructing environments that support health and wellness. You build hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare-related facilities that house not only state-of-the-art technology but also a diverse array of healthcare professionals delivering critical services. Your work impacts lives directly and profoundly, and you thrive on this responsibility.
But what happens when a new opportunity arises that’s outside of your comfort zone? What if your next career move feels intimidating, challenging, even scary? What if your gut is telling you, “no”?
Here’s why you should not always listen to that initial instinct and why a career move that scares you could be the best thing for your professional development.
The Power of Fear
Fear, when recognized and harnessed, can be an excellent motivator. Fear signals risk, and risk signals growth. When something scares us, it’s often because it challenges our self-concepts and our perceived limitations. It’s outside of what we know, what we’re comfortable with, and it threatens the status quo. And that’s precisely why it can be so powerful.
New challenges will force you to stretch, to grow, to learn new things, and to expand your horizons. They will push you out of your comfort zone and into a space of rapid professional and personal growth. As a leader in the healthcare A/E/C industry, continually pushing your boundaries is key to staying ahead in an ever-evolving field.
Rethinking Your Gut Instinct
Your intuition is valuable, and it’s often right. It’s the culmination of your experiences, knowledge, and wisdom. However, it’s crucial to recognize when your gut instinct is protecting you from legitimate harm or merely maintaining your comfort zone.
A career move that scares you does not inherently imply danger or risk of failure. It merely signals change, a departure from the known into the unknown. The initial instinct to resist the unfamiliar can often be confused with intuition telling you to stay away, when in fact, it may be signaling a profound opportunity for growth.
The Value of Stepping into the Unknown
Healthcare A/E/C is a rapidly evolving field. A 2022 survey of A/E/C firms in the healthcare sector revealed a robust rebound in business, with firms reporting a significant number of projects in progress and scheduled for completion.
Advances in medical technology, architectural design, construction materials and techniques, regulatory landscapes, and the demands of an increasingly discerning populace mean there’s no room for complacency. As leaders in this industry, it is our duty to stay on the cutting edge, to adapt and to innovate.
Stepping into the unknown – whether that’s a new project, a new role, a new market, or a new technological advancement – equips us to better meet these demands. It broadens our perspectives, deepens our understanding, and strengthens our ability to lead effectively in a constantly changing landscape.
Final Thoughts
The decision to step outside of your comfort zone and make a career move that scares you is, ultimately, a personal one. It requires self-reflection, courage, and an understanding that growth often comes hand-in-hand with discomfort.
Remember, the healthcare environments you design, engineer, and build serve a community and a purpose that evolve over time. As leaders in the healthcare A/E/C industry, it is our responsibility to embrace that evolution within our professional journeys too.
So, the next time an opportunity arises that scares you, pause. Instead of listening to the immediate no from your gut, consider the possibilities that lie beyond your comfort zone. Remember, growth lives in the space of the unknown, and it is from these challenges that real innovation stems. Fear, then, may not be a warning to retreat but an invitation to leap forward.
