When should you change careers? The loud complaints get the attention, but the real signal is usually quieter. Drawing on her own move from administration into training, Paula Donnan explains how to tell frustration from outgrowing a role, a career change from a job change, and why the pull matters.

Better decisions are built on evidence. Evidence about your strengths, your current readiness, the quality of the opportunity, and the reality of the environment you would be stepping into. When you assess both options at that level of honesty, one route usually becomes clearer. A career step should not only look like progress. It should feel like a better fit for who you are now, not who others have got used to seeing.