I Don’t Know What's Next For My PT Career - A Case Study

Sarah was like many new graduates.  She was excited for her first job and even more excited to finally be getting a paycheck.  Sarah didn’t want to settle for her first job and she worked really hard to find a place where she enjoyed working.

After starting there, she was surprised at the amount of paperwork and other things she had to do, but overall enjoyed getting her patients better (many of them anyway).  The annoyances were tolerable and were overshadowed by the continuing education courses and other opportunities she had. She could feel herself gaining the skills that put her next to PTs she admired, but her career wasn’t anywhere close to where she wanted it to be.

Side note: As always, we change people’s names and identifying information for privacy purposes, but the story and outcomes remain unchanged

About 18 months into her job, it started to get monotonous (maybe even a bit boring). She would go to a continuing education course, get reinvigorated, and feel she had broken the monotony only to fall back into the same patterns.  Once the initial excitement and novelty of what she learned at the course wore off, she would once again find herself dreading going into work everyday.

Suddenly, 3 years had passed and when Sarah looked at where she was in her career she realized she had always imagined more. The problem was, she didn’t know where she wanted to be. All she knew was that she didn’t want to stay where she was. It was not going to be sustainable for much longer.

With a little work and some high quality people surrounding her, Sarah was able to get an incredible job where she felt respected, challenged, and had the flexibility to pursue outside interests. While there are things about her new job that annoy her (no job is perfect), she is really loving her new environment.

Let’s look at how Sarah transformed her career:

1) She made a decision

No she didn’t decide exactly what she wanted to do, she decided that she was going to take action. Surprisingly, Sarah says this was the simplest step but the hardest one. She says she really didn’t believe she could get the career of her dreams.  It was as if something had kept her from moving forward. We see this with a lot of people in the Bulletproof Career Rebellion.

People don’t even realize that there is something in the back of their mind that is holding them back. Something completely within their power to change.  (If we had to say the best part of the course, it is exposing those barriers and helping people remove them). 

2) She used the Immersion Principle

In order to get the career you want, you have to surround yourself with people who are doing or have done what you want to do.  Sarah realized that while her coworkers were great people, they really didn’t want anything more out of their careers. They seemed content with their current knowledge, work schedule and showing up to work to go through the motions. 

The first step for her was to find people that inspired her and pushed her to be more.  She found a community who wanted more from their careers. People who wanted grow. Not only that, she found people who were a step or two ahead of her in their careers. The positivity of this group gave her the energy to take on the sometimes scary process of creating a career you love.

3) She got a mentor

I think we all are looking for a mentor at some point in our career. Sarah thought she had a mentor. The company set her up with someone in the clinic to be her mentor. This person was really just a clinical mentor. Someone Sarah could ask clinical questions or ask about which continuing education courses to attend. What Sarah needed and found was a professional mentor. Someone who could guide her knowing what to do next. Someone who could encourage her to take a leap and make a phone call, send an email, or attend a course. Her professional mentor was able to help her put action to things. 

Sarah went through a process that guided her questions, had people around her to help refine what she was looking for, and had a  professional mentor to help point the path. She is now living in a city she only dreamed of, pursued her yoga certification and has private clients that she treats on the afternoons she is not working in the clinic.

Sometimes taking one small action is all that it takes to change the trajectory of your career.  If you’ve felt stuck for a while or haven’t been able to take that one small action, we’d love to help.

If this sounds like an intriguing way to approach your career and life, join us at the Professional Rebellion. There are many free resources, challenges, and newsletter updates and the Bulletproof Career Rebellion 3.1 course starts soon.