Career Switch + Dealing with Irrational Fears

[Salina]

Hi all! Thank you for your time in reading this, this is going to be a bit long but I'll do my best to keep it to the point. Any advice would be most appreciated, I have two issues I'm dealing with at the moment so I figured I'd put them both here.

 

1) Career Switch

I've been doing marketing for the past 6 years and in all honesty, I hate it. I feel no job satisfaction, I don't enjoy it and I just don't find it fulfilling. I've tried different areas of marketing and whilst I don't mind some areas over others, I'm just not interested in this field anymore. I'm not a slacker by any means, I will work hard wherever I work and complete my tasks but I struggle to find the energy to put in an effort and this is sometimes I bit too consuming.

 

It took me several years to really figure out what I'd like to do. I'm lucky that I just entered a new company (doing marketing...) and may actually be able to transition into the role I really want (they have it here but no opening just yet). I'm hoping though, since I don't have experience in the field I really want to go into, I can do it on top of my role (I've spoken to my supervisor who seems ok with this, so long as I can do what I was hired for first of course, I completely understand and respect that). I'm hoping that I can acquire experience in the field I want to work in, whilst doing my marketing role and then transition into the one I want at a later point. The marketing role itself isn't terribly challenging and there are many times when I'm bored out of my skull but to be honest, I'd rather be incredibly bored than have more marketing tasks to do. (So sorry if I come off bratty or spoilt, I really don't mean to).

 

My issue though is, I know myself when I get really fixated on a feeling; I tend to get tunnel vision and sometimes just can't see the bigger picture. So I'd like to ask all of you who have made a career switch, what were the tough questions you asked yourself before you did it? I want to make sure I challenge myself with all the right (and hard) questions to know that I am doing the right thing and not acting out of stupidity or narrow-mindedness.

 

2) Irrational Fears

I'm not entirely sure if this is related to the post above. Does anyone else get irrational fears about constantly failing at work? I seem to. And does anyone else freak out the moment their boss sends them a message, even if it's about perfectly normal stuff?

 

For example, my boss sent me a message over our internal communications system. I got a scare (as I always do when she messages me). The thing is, she's not a bad or harsh person (maybe a tad intimidating but nowhere near the worst boss you can have). Even just seeing her name pop up on my messenger freaks me out. Why is that?? I *always* feel like they're about to berate me or tell me I've done something wrong or missed something.

 

She then gave me a new task to do and instantly, I felt such a feeling of dread like I'd totally fail it. But when I thought about it a bit, I realized it wasn't a hard task at all to do. I still have a twinge of a feeling that I'll struggle but I'm not a person who does badly in my work, in fact I do well and have a good amount of experience.

 

These feelings are SO irrational, I know it but it's almost like a reflex action sometimes and whenever an internal notice pops up on my messenger, I'm begging on the inside it's not from the boss. Does anyone else get this fear? And if so, how do you handle it?

 

Thanks so much for your time. :)

Edited August 17, 2015 by Salina