Sometimes in life we come to the realization that what we once wanted is no longer working for us, and this is especially common when it comes to our careers. After all, the average person is expected to work roughly 90,000 hours in their lifetime – about one-third of their whole life – so one could argue that it is well worth undergoing a career change when you start to feel like your job just isn’t doing it for you anymore.
This is especially true for people with the ESFP personality type (Entertainers). These personalities tend to seek enjoyment in almost every aspect of their lives, including their careers. Consequently, they tend to look for jobs that align with their social nature, allow them to utilize their strengths, and give them the flexibility and freedom to foster a healthy work-life balance.
If you ask a person with the ESFP personality type whether they live to work or work to live, they would almost always say the latter. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that if an ESFP were no longer satisfied with their career, they would be willing to take a bold leap into a career change. And this is true for Sophie, an ESFP, leadership coach, and writer here at 16Personalities. In this article, we will look through the lens of Sophie’s personal experiences to explore what might drive ESFPs to decide that they are ready for a major career reinvention.
Sometimes a career change is absolutely necessary for an ESFP’s overall happiness, but that doesn’t mean that the process is easy. That’s why we’ve created the ultimate ESFP playbook to finding a new career – the Entertainer Guide to Career Reinvention – to help people with this personality type find a career path that gives them more joy, balance, and maybe even a higher salary.
Why a Career Change?: Following Inspiration
If people with the ESFP personality type are presented with an opportunity that truly excites them, they will more than likely seize the moment and go for the career change – especially if their job has become monotonous and they have been craving something new. When it comes to following their inspiration, ESFP personalities tend to be willing to take the leap without too much overthinking. This was true for Sophie.
For many years, Sophie focused her energy and attention on the world of business. She studied international business in college and went on to get a master’s degree in strategic marketing. After she finished her schooling, she began a corporate career selling software B2B for two years. Then she moved into digital marketing, where she was a dedicated account manager for more than eight years.
It wasn’t until Sophie went through a coaching certification program to enhance her management skills that she started to feel a strong desire to make a career change. She tentatively began looking for new career opportunities in the same field that she had worked in for almost a decade, but an interest in coaching was always in the back of her mind.
“I really did love and enjoy my previous job, and I like to think that I was good at it,” Sophie said. “It was not so much that I left that job because I was unhappy with it but because I was ready for a new challenge.”
True to ESFPs’ gregarious nature, Sophie even kept in regular contact with a friend she had met in the coaching program – Jomar. The two had been paired together for 12 weeks, so that they could get some peer-to-peer coaching practice. Little did they know that a couple years later they would be going into business together. All it took was a weekend trip to Arizona to chat with Jomar in person for Sophie to know that she was ready to leave her career to pursue coaching full-time.
“I decided on a one-and-a-half-hour plane flight that I was going for it,” Sophie said. “I just got way more excited about the possibility that opened up for me when my business partner and I figured out that our vision could add something beautiful to this world.”
More Career Change Inspiration: Friends, Family, and Freedom
For Sophie, excitement about a new career path was not the only factor that motivated her career change. Her need for freedom and desire to be closer to loved ones – two motivators that are important to ESFPs – also played a large part in her decision.
Sophie started looking for a new role in early 2020. After initially looking for an internal opportunity with the company that she was working for, she expanded her search. She began casually researching job boards for a position in the same field – something that she described as “not exciting at all.” So she eventually moved on to asking around in her network and getting leads from people she already knew. This strategy seemed to align more with her ESFP personality type, as she could engage with people directly, making the process much more interesting and hands-on.
However, her job search was interrupted by a global crisis – the COVID pandemic. At the time, Sophie was living in San Francisco in a studio apartment that she affectionately called her “shoebox.” When she could no longer spend afternoons in the park, enjoy weekends at the beach, or hang out with her friends, the appeal of staying in that city started to fade. On top of all that, her job role changed drastically.
“I had always really enjoyed my job, which included a lot of travel and in-person meetings,” Sophie said. “During COVID, the things that I really enjoyed in my job were abruptly eliminated, and the rest remained. After two years, that just truly wasn’t energizing anymore.”
As Sophie worked from her apartment during the pandemic, she struggled with the isolation. It was not the most ideal situation for an Extravert who loves living in the moment, but it served as a learning experience. With the extra time on her hands, she was able to better understand what she wanted for both her immediate future and her life path in general. She was ready for a new adventure, new challenges, more time with her family, more fulfillment, and more freedom.
“In total, I spent almost five years in San Francisco, and I did absolutely love it,” Sophie said. “But being locked up in my shoebox apartment, not being able to see my family for two years because of flying and visa restrictions during COVID, and work being ‘work from home’ for another year – at least – ultimately made me say, ‘I don’t want to do this. I’m speeding up my seven-year plan, and I want to move back to Europe.’”
Career Change Benefits: Experience and Excitement
With her interest in pursuing a coaching business with her friend and her desire to escape the confines of her San Francisco shoebox to be closer to her family in Europe, Sophie was ready to embark on a new chapter in life. And she wanted to start this new chapter in a place that she could explore and enjoy – which is very on-brand for a bold, fun-loving ESFP personality.
Once Sophie decided that her coaching business was the career change that she needed, she did her due diligence to make sure that her vision of moving back to Europe, starting a coaching business, and basking in life’s goodness was financially feasible. And after many years of hard work in her business career, she learned that she had enough savings to fall back on to feel comfortable with taking the leap into the unknown – or, in this case, a leap to a town she had never been to, in a country that she had only visited once.
“I did look at my finances and worked out a worst-case scenario, which truly for me was: the company fails and then you’ve had a year living in Portugal, enjoying Portuguese beaches, food, and wine,” Sophie said. “That was truly the worst case that I could come up with, and that sounded pretty good to me.”
After her assessment and some very important chats with family and friends to help her process her decision, she got in touch with a friend to arrange a stay in their home for her first two weeks in Portugal. True to form for an ESFP personality, Sophie dove headfirst into her life in Portugal without a detailed plan, but she made it work.
“I just moved and figured that I would figure it out,” Sophie said. “Even if everything else failed, I would still not be homeless – I’d be close to family, and I’d have an experience to share with my [future] grandkids.”
Looking for a resource to help you through your career change as an ESFP personality type? Check out our Entertainer Guide to Career Reinvention.
Final Thoughts on ESFPs and Career Change
Sophie is still living in Portugal, running her coaching business, and living life on her own terms. She may not have had an extensive plan for her career change, but she did have a general outline. And it turns out that was all she needed to build the life that she really wanted.
“A lot of people have called my decision ‘brave,’ and I never really felt it that way, as it just made sense to me that this was the next step for me,” Sophie said. “I realize that it’s bold, but I think that’s something that ESFP personalities do: they jump in with enthusiasm and positivity and are willing to just try it out without getting caught up in the what-ifs.”
Sophie’s story is one of many exciting ESFP career change stories. What’s yours? Share it with the 16Personalities community in the comments below, along with any tips that helped you get through your career reinvention.
Further Reading
- For more details and advice on navigating career change as someone with the ESFP personality type, get your copy of our premium Entertainer Guide to Career Reinvention e-book.
- To explore more professional development tools and resources, check out our Premium Entertainer Suite of guides and tests.
- Navigating Career Change for Every Personality Type
- Entertainer (ESFP) Productivity Tips: Conquering the Mundane