How an Itsy-Bitsy Career Shift Can Make You Location Independent

photo: lintmachine

What if your current profession is nearly impossible to mobilize using the methods previously discussed in this series? I’m sure there are at least a few people out there for whom this is true.

Obviously, you could just go into another career. This makes sense if your feelings about your career are negative or neutral.

But maybe you love your job to death and can’t stand the idea of abandoning your career…even to pursue your other dream of being location independent.

In this case, you need to think outside the box. You have more options than you think.

Rather than making a drastic change, look into related niches or specialties within your career.

For example, an oncology nurse might become a travel nurse. A wedding photographer becomes a travel photographer. An office manager becomes a virtual assistant. A kindergarten teacher becomes a nanny catering to nomadic families.

Don’t be afraid to go into a related field that pays a little less or has a less snazzy job title.

What’s important is experiencing happiness in the moment, not climbing up some contrived corporate ladder. Who cares what your job title is when you’re living your dream?

The advantage to making a teeny-weeny strategic career shift like this is that you expand your options for becoming location independent, but you don’t burn any bridges. If you decide you want your old job back, it’ll be easier to get it than if you’d spent the last year or so doing something completely unrelated.

photo: DeaPeaJay

Brainstorming Exercise

• Make a list of everything that you currently do at your job. Not your formal job description, but what you actually do.
• What percentage of your daily tasks must be done in an office, factory, or other specific location?
• What are the three things in your job you love doing most? Do those fall into the category above, or not?
• Now, make a list of all the people who work closely with you or for you.
• Do any of their jobs look like they’d be easier to mobilize than yours? Could you do those jobs with your skills? What do they do all day that’s different from you? Could you learn how to do those things?
• Finally, make a list of all the jobs that would allow you to keep doing your favorite things but are easier to mobilize than your current job.

You may not have any clear answers at the end of this exercise, but you’ll have a better grasp of the options available to you.

What specific, concrete things do you need to change to make your current job location independent?

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