Your Career or Your Relationship. Should You Choose?

Having a successful career and celebrating a loving relationship at the same time is not always easy to balance. While together, you’re an entity, you each have personal goals, different current job satisfaction levels, financial needs, and personal beliefs that often take you on separate paths.

The choice between your career and your relationship doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing situation. As individuals and couples, we have to change this way of thinking and find real alternatives. The trick to finding the sweet spot lies in switching focus.

Love and careers can go hand in hand – if you both work towards finding the balance.

First of all, you shouldn’t take the plunge and immediately decide to leave a relationship for your career without thinking about it together. You must have that conversation. Analyze your options: can you try long distance? Would your partner move with you? Can they understand your career choice?

Life is a rollercoaster. Sometime you’ll be going up in your career, while your partner takes the backseat. It’s important that your partner understands this and is willing to accept this, for you to find the perfect balance.

You also want to acknowledge that life changes – it happens. Life decisions cannot be set in stone. Perspectives, circumstances, and priorities change. If you’re struggling between choosing your career over your relationship, or vice versa, take some time to reevaluate, revalidate, and reconfirm your decision.

No matter what you choose to break from, give yourself credit for acknowledging that something or someone isn’t right for you at the moment. Be mindful of how much time and effort you’re investing in your relationship or your career, and the type of rewards you get back. Think about where you are right now and where you want to be, then decide what’s going to help you get there.

Give yourself the opportunity to work towards finding the balance between your career and your relationship. But if you find yourself continually leaning and working more towards one than the other, listen to your subconscious and make that decision, no matter how heartbreaking it might be.