Should I stay, or should I go?

Most of us at some point in our careers will ask ourselves: Should I stay, or should I go?

Would it be best to try and stick it out at my current role or at my current place of work, or should I be exploring other options open to me?

How easy it is to make the decision can vary hugely depending on what stage you are at in your career. For example, as a recent graduate you may feel like you have so many options you can't decide the best route forward, but you know you need progress, and you need it fast. Or, if you have already worked for a number of years and are heading towards the middle of your career you might feel that your choices are narrower, you have more responsibilities now and feel more ‘niched’ in the work you do. If you feel like you are in the last 3rd of your working life you might be looking for more flexibility, perhaps building a portfolio of part-time or ‘fractional’ roles, using the experience and network you have to maintain your income whilst working fewer hours or in a less structured way. Or, you might be thinking about setting up your own business and being your own boss.

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What’s driving your need for change?

It can be a complex decision to decide whether to stay or leave. There are lots of different factors that force people into making the decision, most commonly having a difficult working relationship with someone in your team, or (worse) with your boss. Or you might feel that you’re not getting the development that you need, are being overlooked for opportunities or there just aren’t any roles you could move into. Or maybe something in your personal life has changed, like moving house, starting a family, having carers responsibilities, which means that work now takes a different priority in your life.

Or, it could be something else, but whatever it is, it’s worth making sure that you are clear about what is driving you need for a change. Ask yourself (and try to be completely and honest with yourself):

Am I running away from something, or towards something?

If you feel as though you’re tempted to move on because you are running away from something, this generally means that you haven’t addressed a particular issue which could lead you to be in a similar situation in the future, and it’s likely that that issue may reappear in your new role. As you know, you can’t run away from yourself.

Take the time to reflect further and see if you can tackle the issue. Is it something within yourself that needs to be faced before moving on? Could tackling this issue provide the job satisfaction you have previously lacked and enable you to get more comfortable in your current role or organisation??

You might find it useful at this point to reconsider what your personal values are, what type of personality you have, what your strengths, motivations and drivers are. Developing a deeper self-awareness and understanding of ‘who’ you are can be the starting point to help you work out ‘what’ you want to do with your life.

In most situations, and if you have a choice, finding a way to stay is the less risky and less stressful option, but only if you can face into the challenges, you’ve identified and have the energy and desire to overcome them. If you try and you can’t fix the problem, at least you will know you gave it your best shot and can leave with that knowledge.

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What do you need and what do you want?

Consider what you need, as well as what you want. For example, you might believe that you need a certain salary from a certain career to live the life that you want, but if you were to work out your budget and balance this against how you want your life to be, it may become clear that you are actually in a position to re-train, take a side step or work fewer hours, in order to pursue a new career path that’s better suited to you right now.

You might find the ‘ideal job description’ exercise a useful place to start with this.

1.???? Get a piece of paper and set out 3 columns. In the first column capture all of the things that it is essential that your new role will give you. This might be things like the minimum salary you can accept, the maximum amount of travel you want to do, the hours you need to work and so on. Also include things like the type of work (customer facing, managing your own diary, etc) and the type of culture you would like to be in (very sociable, beers after work, Christmas party, or the opposite).

2.???? In the second column capture the things that are desirable that your role has, things like your ideal salary, other benefits, the number of days you would prefer to be in the office, how far you would ideally like to travel, how often?

3.???? The final column is for ‘definitely not’ items. When you read through a vacancy advert or check a company website you will likely be able to read between the lines and can picture what the working environment will be like. What are those things that make you stop reading and not apply? It might be things like being ‘on-call’, or having a heavily targeted, competitive, data driven environment, or a particular managerial style.

Mapping this out and thinking about what you would really like and definitely need can help you visualise a potential future, and perhaps help you work out what you are trying to move from, or to.

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Back to grassroots

As you work up through an organisation and move into leadership and management roles, you can sometimes find that you get further away from using the skills which you were good at and used to enjoy. This could lead you to feel distanced from what it was about your chosen career that made you happy in the first place. You might want to take an opportunity to redress this balance and get back to grassroots, so to speak.

Try to reflect on a time when you were really happy with your working life, what was the context, what were you doing and who was around you? What was it that made that work satisfying for you? Is there a way that you can recapture that, what would it take, and do you have the opportunity to do it, at least in part of your work? Or could you find a way to do it as a volunteer, outside of your normal working week?

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Once you’ve decided it’s time, what are your options?

It can be really useful to talk these through with someone, often they will see many other potential choices that you might not have considered. Start with a big list, or mind map, or vision board, whatever works best for you, and try and capture as many options as possible before you start discounting them.

Do you want to be in the same type of work that you do now, but at a different level, or in a different organisation, sector or working environment? Or could you explore alternative avenues such a re-training in a new profession, self-employment, taking a sabbatical, working overseas or voluntarily for a while?

Don’t rule out the option that you could move into a new type of work in your existing organisation. It’s not unusual and in many ways it is easier to move from, for example, HR into project management or operations in the same company, than it is to try and find a first-time project management, or Ops role in a new organisation.

You might be spending too much time worrying about what you should, could or ought to be doing, rather than focussing on what you actually do. Could you challenge yourself to become an expert in your current profession, get that qualification, membership of the governing body, join specialist groups, follow thought leaders in your line of work, become a speaker in your area of expertise? You might not need to change everything about your work, just a few tweaks in the right areas might get you back onto a happier path.

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Looking towards the future

Ultimately, you should be prepared to look all the way to the end of your working life, particularly if you are in the middle of your career or heading towards retirement. Take some time to visualise what the end result will look like for you, for example, if you were self-employed, how would you tie your business up? If you are working full time now, how many hours will you want to be working as you approach retirement? How much money will you need to have the retirement you want? By visualising how you may feel at that point in time, it can really bring you back to understanding the ‘here and now’ of your journey.

It could be that you need to fall back in love with what you’re doing, or perhaps you need some time away from work to re-energise and refresh your mind and body, or you might need to take a different approach if you feel that you are stagnating in your current position.

Some of the best advice I have had career-wise is to trust your instincts, only you know what you need. But sometimes it takes some deep thinking to be able to hear that inner voice and lots of courage to follow your gut, especially if you are worried about what other people will say or think about you. Just in case you’re wondering, they really aren’t thinking about you!

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In summary, before you make your decision to stay or go, spend some time thinking through your real reasons for wanting to leave, what you want and need to get from any work that you do, what stage you are at in your life and what all of the options are that are available to you. Write them down and discuss them with someone you trust, several people if possible. Then go with the decision that is right for you.

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Here to help

If you would like someone to provide confidential support and guidance as you work out your best next move, drop me a message and we can start a conversation.