Let’s agree that time is ticking away and that your job, your career eat up the best part of your day. How do you know if you should leave your job?
Should You Leave Your Job?
Hi folks, my name is Christopher Lawrence, and I’m with ChangeMyLifeCoaching.ca. Listen, if you’re not sure if you should leave your job if you’re stuck struggling to make that decision, then maybe we could just agree that time is ticking away. See what I did there? Should I put my head under the halo? I have a halo, let’s do this. Let’s agree that time is ticking away and that your job, your career, eats up the best part of your day, right? And when I say eats up, meaning you’re there for eight or nine hours, most likely, and it’s probably the time of the day when the sun is out and it’s nice, and it’s shining, and whatever else is happening, and then you fit the rest of your life around your work, right? That’s standard for most of us in this world that we live in. So the question is, should you leave or shouldn’t you? And it can be a really tough decision, but here’s what I would say about it. I would say that, let’s just agree that if you’re unhappy, unsatisfied, stuck, stagnant, angry, or maybe even fearful, let’s just agree that something needs to change. That’s the first thing. Something needs to change, okay? And let’s agree that maybe right now leaving comes at such a great risk that you’re not sure how you would manage it, you don’t know what else is out there for you. Should I straighten my shirt? I feel like I should straighten my shirt. So let’s agree to that too. So then how do you make this decision?
Do You Enjoy The Tasks?
Well here’s how I make it. I look at the four key areas for my career that I work with my clients on. The first is tasks. So, from a task perspective, just tasks, not people, not working with people, nothing else, just the actual activities of what you do, do you enjoy 60%, 70%, 80% of those tasks, most of the time? So when I say that, I say that because you are in a position, if you have a job, you are in a position where you have the luxury of choice. If you’re not working your first job is to get a job, right? But if you have the luxury of choice then look at the tasks themselves and say, “Do I enjoy most of the tasks that I’m doing?” So separate it from all the other stuff, just look at the tasks. If you’re kind of 60%, 70%, 80%, or you think you could influence some of the tasks to be more enjoyable, either changing your own perception or changing how you influence and negotiate with your leader and your peers, because sometimes people like work that you don’t, and you like work that they don’t, so there are things that we can do, it’s a skill to be learned, but if you’re %60, %70, %80, and you see an opportunity to influence, that would not be the reason to leave, it might be the reason to stay. And if not, that might be the reason to leave.
What Are Your Values Around Work and LifeStyle?
The second thing that we look at is your value system. So I don’t really care if your values match the company’s values, that’s almost impossible in all honestly, because company values, oftentimes they’re just words that are not practiced. And some companies do a really good job of practicing them, but some of them don’t. What I’m more interested in is what are your values around work and lifestyle that you would like to express in your life, and whether are you able to express them through this career. Are you in a position where you can express them most of the time? So if you value work/life flow, or you value family time, but you travel 50% of the time, probably not a good job fit, because you can’t express that value. Do you leave, or not? Well that kind of depends on those two things and two more, together you look at the whole picture. So look at your entire value system, this is also where interpersonal relationships come up. What kind of people do you want to work with, and can you do that right now in this job? Now, remember, sometimes it’s about how we shift our perception, and our behaviour, to get a different response from those that we work with. So, for example, I find that when I work with people I can almost always evoke a different response based off of how I ask questions or participate with them. So sometimes we’ve got to change that up too. So that’s the second one. Job fit based on tasks, job fit based on an expression of your values, are you able to fully express your values, or to a great extent express your values by working in this job?
What Is Your Purpose?
The third thing is, job fit, values… purpose! Yeah, there we go, do you have a purpose for being there? So remember, purpose can be a bigger purpose like Martin Luther King had, or Mother Teresa, or Gandhi, right? Most of us are not going to be those people, but some of us, like myself, I’m a little bit idealistic, so it’s like, yeah, how could I improve or change the world? Or this world that I’m working in right now, with these people, can I make a difference here in some way or another? So purpose can be that, or it can be as simple as I’d like to use my skill set to its fullest capacity in a place where that’s acknowledged. So that can be a purpose too. Your purpose might be to get my kids through college with no debt, and that could be a really big factor when you look at whether you stay or go. So you have to have a reason for doing what you’re doing, and it doesn’t have to be big and etheric, although it can be, but it can actually be quite simple, I think people over-complicate this whole purpose conversation. I think it’s over-complicated, and I don’t say that to uninspire you, I say it because I’ll give you an example of somebody who thought they needed a massive big purpose, but then what we came down to is that they wanted to be a solid leader for whatever groups of people or tribes of people that they worked with and for, or who worked for them. That included their friends, their family, or in the literal sense of leadership. And so being a good strong leader who’s also vulnerable, that was their purpose. So it doesn’t have to be over-complicated, okay? So keep that in mind, so that’s the third piece.
What Are You Willing to Do?
The fourth piece is willingness, what are you willing to do? What are you willing to do? Do you like that? Look at this. Okay, so what are you willing to do? Willingness plays a really big role. Are you willing to negotiate with your current employer or people so that you can get even more of what you enjoy and love? Are you willing to go out there and start the job application process? There’s a whole bunch more to think about with willingness, but that’s a really key piece. So what I would say is those are the four things, hopefully, you took good notes, if not watch this video again, and we should have it transcribed on our website, ChangeMyLifeCoaching.ca. And maybe start to answer some of those questions, and if you struggle with them, that’s a good time to book a strategy session with me, and we can kind of get you figured out. So Christopher Lawrence, ChangeMyLifeCoaching.ca, and we’ll see you later. Have a good day.
