Before you quit, figure out what you're quitting
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When someone tells me they're burned out and thinking about leaving, I usually ask what part they'd actually be leaving, the people or the work. A lot of the time they don't know yet. That's fair. When everything feels bad, it's really hard to tell which part is the actual problem. So this week I'm borrowing from one of my favorite tv shows, Parks and Rec, to help sort it out. Just about every main character on that show makes one of the four career pivots, and they're the easiest way I know to explain them. But first, the four pivots come from two questions. Does the work still fit? And will this place meet you halfway? If you haven't seen the show, it follows the parks department in a small, made-up Indiana town called Pawnee. Here's who does what. Leslie Knope is the deputy director, and she loves her job more than anyone should love a government job. She eventually moves on to the federal government, but she stays in her deputy director role for years first, reshaping the work around what she cares about. The work fits and the place meets her halfway, so that stretch is the stay and craft type of pivot. Tom Haverford works in the same office and never cares about government work at all. He finally leaves to open his own restaurant. He answered no to both questions, so he makes the full pivot, new work in a new place. Ann Perkins is a nurse and Leslie's best friend. When she wants a different life, she moves to Michigan and takes her nursing with her. The work still fit and the town didn't anymore, so that's same work, new place. And April Ludgate starts as the office intern and acts bored by all of it. She stays in city government but moves over to Animal Control, because animals are the part she actually cares about. The place still worked for her and the parks work didn't, so that's pivot from within. Easy enough to sort when you're watching from the couch. Your own job is harder, because burnout smears everything together. Your boss and the work you do all day blur into one big no. So I pull them apart one at a time, and Pawnee helps. Start with the work. Picture doing your exact same tasks for a team you actually like. Does the dread lift a little? Or does it come right along with you? That's the Ann and Tom split. Ann could picture nursing somewhere new and still like it. Tom spent years running side businesses on the clock, and a different government job was never going to fix that for him, because the work itself was the no. So if the dread lifts in your picture, you might be an Ann. If it follows you into the nicer office, you might be more of a Tom. Then look for the part of your job you'd keep if you could. Even bad jobs usually have one. For April it was the animals, and that one clue got her a different job without leaving the people she liked. Write yours down. If you can't find a single thing, that tells you something too. Then the place. "Meet you halfway" has a catch. You have to ask before you know the answer. Leslie asked for everything. She spent years pushing the town to turn an abandoned construction pit into a park, and Pawnee met her halfway often enough that staying made sense for her. So try the Leslie version. Write down what's wearing you down and sort each thing into a lane.
Lane 2 is where the place question gets answered. Pick one thing in it and ask for it, like a project off your plate or a straight answer about that promotion. If they work with you, the place might be meeting you halfway. If they brush it off, or say yes and nothing changes, that's more evidence. And if most of your list landed in lane 3, the place has kind of answered already. If you haven't asked for anything in a while, you don't have an answer to the place question yet. You have a guess. Here's one small thing you can try this week. Do the picture test and write down the part of your job you'd keep. Then pick one lane 2 ask and make it before the end of next month. You'll have a real answer to at least one question. And Tom tried a couple of businesses before the restaurant stuck, so the pivot you test first doesn't have to be the one you land on. Before you start over, find out which question you're saying no to. That’ll give you a bit of a direction to head in. Take care, Tara P.S. This sorting goes a lot faster with someone asking you the follow-up questions. That's what we do in the Career Reboot Group Intensive. It's two hours on Zoom with me and a small group on November 17. You leave knowing what's wearing you down and which of the four pivots fits your situation. |